The Grifter
Chapter 6

Sebastian Beck had been called a lot of things, but nice had never been one of them. Not that he gave a single f**k that no one had ever liked him. He’d way rather be respected than liked. The fact that the respect came by way of fear made no difference to him.

Amazing how thoroughly you could control people by threatening to make them watch you cut off the fingers of someone they loved.

The control you got when you actually followed through on it? Goddamned priceless.

“Yo, yo, yo! Sebastian, my man!” His cousin walked into the kitchen of the house Beck had rented upon arriving in Remington a couple of weeks ago. Alfie was a fvckwit, to be sure, and sweet Christ, he got on Beck’s nerves. But Beck needed him in order to get the ball rolling for this new business venture, so he’d put up with him. For now, at least.

“Alfie,” Beck said coolly. “You’re up early.”

His cousin laughed. “Never went to bed, dude. That way, the party never ends.”

Beck had guessed as much from Alfie’s dime-sized pupils and the smell of cheap liquor and even cheaper women that seemed to be oozing from his pores. So predictable. “Mmm. Where are we on business contacts?”

Alfie’s laughter took on a nervous edge. “Why so serious, Beckster? We’re gonna dive right in to business before I’ve even had a cup of coffee?”

“I’ll go out on a limb and guess that the coke you did in the driveway probably has more of a kick than what’s in my coffeepot,” Beck said. Alfie’s expression was all chagrin—the guy had no poker face whatsoever, not to mention zero f*****g restraint—and Beck pressed the soft spot harder. “And, yes, we’re talking business. I’m not here for a family reunion, remember?”

“Right, right,” Alfie said, lifting his hands in a non-verbal my bad. God, he was so easily bent to Beck’s will. Had been ever since Beck had stolen all the cash out of Alfie’s father’s wallet when they were eleven, then pinned it on Alfie so convincingly, Uncle Walt had beaten the crap out of him. Uncle Walt had always been a nasty drunk. Alfie had never tried to pin the misdeed on Beck, because he f*****g knew better, but the power Beck had gained from the manipulation had only been the beginning.

Alfie sat in the chair across from Beck, his knee moving into an immediate bounce that was a byproduct of both coke and nerves. “Okay, so. I’ve got a couple people in mind for this business venture of yours, but I’ve gotta tell you. This whole market change thing is going to make it a little hard.”

“This whole market change thing is the entire point of my coming here,” Beck snapped. He had his hooks solidly in the heroin market in Atlanta. But there was already a sh!tload of competition for prescription painkillers there, and muddying the water between the two in the same city would make conquering the second a hell of a lot harder. His supplier was ready to move a lot of product. Beck just needed a place to do the business.

“Okay, right,” Alfie said. “I hear you, man. But these aren’t people I normally run with, you know? The A Park Phantoms deal either meth or smack, and you said no gangs, anyway. You’re talking about a new product that has totally different clientele. Oxy, Percocet, Vicodin…it’s just gonna take me a minute to replace the right people for this.”

For once in his miserable life, Alfie was right. Not all junkies were created equal, and rich high schoolers and college students usually had way less qualms about throwing back pills by the fistful than shooting up. On one thing, he had to stand firm, though.

“No gangs,” Beck reiterated. He didn’t need the pissing contests and territorial mess that went with that. Gang leaders could be so f*****g prissy about that sh!t. “Do you have any prospects for people who have connections to a lot of buyers?”

“I’ve been asking around. On the down low,” Alfie added at Beck’s withering stare. “But, you know. I don’t wanna hook you up with the wrong people.”

“No, you don’t,” Beck agreed. “You’d better trust anyone you pull in on this.”

Alfie let go of a nervous laugh. “Well, yeah. Of course.”

Beck had leaned across the table before Alfie could lean back, cutting the space between them in half. “No, really, Alfie,” he said, low and quiet and dead f*****g serious. “If I replace out you got sloppy, if this operation gets jeopardized because you trusted the wrong people, you won’t like what happens next.”

Alfie’s eyes widened despite their glassiness, but Beck had to hand it to the bastard. He reached for his bravado, quick. “It’ll be fine, Beck. Really. I want this cheddar, just like you, okay? I’d be stupid to f**k this up, am I right?”

Finally, something they agreed on. “You would be incredibly stupid to f**k this up,” Beck agreed, not leaning back so much as a millimeter. “If you bring in anyone—anyone—who becomes a problem for this operation, I will spend days killing you. Now”—Beck waited a beat before relaxing against his chair and allowing himself a cold smile—“go ahead and help yourself to some coffee. Like you said, it’s early, and there’s work to be done.”

Shawn slidbehind the wheel of his department-issued Dodge Challenger and huddled a little deeper in his jacket to ward off the chilly November air. Frankie sat beside him in the passenger seat, just as she had probably a thousand times before in another universe. The fact that she was wearing a leather jacket and jeans instead of a patrol uniform made no never-mind to his memory, which was currently kicking up all kinds of dust over their little return to the field. Reminding him how she took her coffee at the drive-thru. That she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together when she was nervous, the sort of tell she hoped was too subtle to notice, but that Shawn had pegged after their first three months as partners.

The feel of her b***d seeping through his fingers as he’d held her bones together and prayed for her not to die while waiting for paramedics to arrive, and okay, yeah, his memory needed to knock it the f**k off.

No emotions. All control. Right. Now.

“So,” Frankie said, her sunglasses hiding the stare he managed to feel, regardless. “Tell me a little about your CI.”

Shawn dove headfirst into the opportunity to focus on something other than his feelings. “Leo is an interesting guy,” he started, and Frankie’s laughter filled the Challenger along with the morning sunshine.

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

Good to see she hadn’t missed a beat. “He’s got a handful of priors, all minor except for a burglary he did a few years for. He’s been out for three, but his girlfriend had their baby while he was locked up.”

“Ah.” Frankie nodded. “I take it he’s motivated to stay out of prison, then.”

“Not so motivated that he’s not still stealing things on occasion. Allegedly,” Shawn added, because it was mostly a hunch. “He’s never been the kind of guy with a work ethic. Easy money appeals. But he does live with the girlfriend and kid. My guess is that he goes for the quick payout when things are tight.”

“Including working with you,” Frankie said.

Shawn maneuvered through traffic, which had grown pretty light now that rush hour was nearly over. “I pinched him for fencing stolen electronics about six months after he got out of prison. Like you said, he wasn’t keen on a revisit to Remington Pen. He agreed to roll on the source, who just so happened to be a person of interest in a string of robbery-assaults. Leo will b!tch up a storm about giving me intel, but he’s also not stupid. He’s well compensated for his trouble.”

That last part was something Shawn made sure of. His job would be harder by a crapload without good CIs. He kept them well protected, not to mention well fed.

She took that in, then asked, “What makes you think he’ll have something we can use?”

“His brother, Ty, is in the A Park Phantoms, which is the gang Alfie’s done business with. Leo doesn’t have any affiliation, but he hears a lot. Sometimes he shares. Especially if it’ll keep his brother out of trouble.”

“Ah, right. Finesse.” Frankie tipped her head, and even though she gazed easily out the window, Shawn had no doubt that she was calculating everything. “I could be the cop who plays hardball,” she said. “For a change.”

“What makes you think I’m always the one who plays hardball?”

The question flew out before he could check it, but Frankie hit it like a pop fly on a summer afternoon. “Are you looking at you? The ink, the muscles, the face”—she paused to pull an exaggerated frown, which made him automatically frown in return, and damn it—“You’re, like, the poster boy for ‘grumpy cop’. In fact, I’ll bet you’re ‘grumpy cop’ at least eighty percent of the time.”

Shawn kept his face perfectly neutral even though she had him dead to rights. “I don’t like to mess with things that work.”

“I bet.” Frankie laughed. “Hale’s probably a fantastic counterpoint, too. Nice as pie, right up until she needs to drop an anvil on somebody.”

“You’re good at reading people.” Jesus, his mouth had worse impulse control than a toddler.

Thankfully, Frankie just shrugged. “I’m good at being a detective. It goes with the territory. I’m sure you don’t suck at it, either.”

“I don’t,” Shawn agreed, because a) he didn’t, and b) she wasn’t wrong about it going with the territory. Being able to get an accurate bead on people was an essential skill for any cop. Plus, the better he was at reading other people’s emotions, the better equipped he was to hide his own.

“So, Leo,” she said, getting back down to business.

Shawn nodded. “He’s pretty used to me giving it to him straight. Taking him by surprise is going to make him edgy enough. I still think it’s a good idea,” he added. “But I also don’t want to freak him out too badly.”

“Which means I get to be the nice guy while you play hardball.”

Frankie didn’t hide her disappointment, but also didn’t argue. They passed the rest of the trip in silence that was oddly comfortable, which Shawn used to get his headspace locked down tight.

Find Leo. Pull his strings just enough to get him to talk. Use what he found out to get closer to Beck.

“This is it,” Shawn said, pulling up to the curb about a half block from the garage where Leo worked.

Frankie gave the street a quick but thorough once-over before saying, “Lead the way.”

They got out of the Challenger and headed in the direction of the garage. Their boots thumped the crumbling pavement softly as they fell into step together, not hurrying, but not taking so much time that anyone’s head would swivel in curiosity—or, worse yet, concern. The garage was right on the edge between downtown and North Point, a no-man’s-land dividing the city and its rougher outskirts, hemmed in by the pier and the Red Run River on the other side. Crime happened everywhere, but North Point seemed to have a hard-on for the nastier flavors of it, so Shawn kept his guard high and tight as he and Frankie walked.

They approached the garage, which was sandwiched between an aging parking lot and a dusty, vacant storefront. A handful of cars and trucks littered the lot, most with service tickets in their windows and none in particularly great shape. Two of the garage bays stood open, and a dark-haired guy in gray coveralls gave them both some moderate side-eye as they approached.

“Hey,” Shawn grunted, lifting his chin once in greeting. The guy—Hector, according to the nametag stitched onto his coveralls—had been here the last two times Shawn had stopped by to talk to Leo. From the look of his clipboard, he’d been promoted to head mechanic since the last time Shawn had visited. “Leo around?”

Hector looked at Shawn, then looked at Frankie twice as long. “You’re the parole officer, right?”

He’d give Leo this—the guy thought on his feet when it came to covering his as*s. “I work with him, yeah,” Shawn said. A stretch, sure, but it kept up appearances.

“Third bay. In the back,” Hector said after a beat. “But don’t keep him too long. That Chevy’s brake pads aren’t going to change themselves.”

Shawn nodded, another one-off. “Understood. Thanks.”

Even though he’d been here probably half a dozen times in the past, Shawn still scanned the interior of the garage, taking in every inch of the place and everyone in it as he and Frankie moved quietly through the space.

“Is that your guy?” she asked out of the corner of her mouth, not looking at Leo even though she’d pegged him from thirty feet away.

Shawn made a noise of agreement, and Frankie smiled.

“You’re about to get a workout.”

The words had barely left the curve of her mouth before Leo ducked sharply toward the office attached to the garage, where Shawn knew all too well that there were not one, but two exits.

“Damn it,” he muttered. He picked up his pace as fast as he dared without making a scene, but Leo was slippery as hell, weaving between a Toyota and a rolling tool cart as he headed for daylight.

“Coming around on your three,” Frankie said, gliding behind him to move quickly to the right. “Meet me in the middle.”

Shawn took barely a split second to visualize before moving with changed purpose. He pressed forward a few more steps before calling out, “Leo!” The move did the trick, making the guy hitch just enough to lose a step, and therefore a precious second of retreat time. Shawn took full advantage by closing in, giving Leo no choice but to either bolt outright or give in.

The fvcker bolted, of course, darting toward the door leading to the office. But Frankie was there first, slipping out from behind a dinged and dented Ford Focus to plant herself directly in Leo’s path.

“Good morning, sweet pea,” she said, smiling brightly as Leo windmilled to a sloppy halt. “You can stop running now.”

He closed his eyes for a long blink, grimacing as he turned back to look at Shawn, who was now right there beside both Leo and a still-smiling Frankie.

“I got nothing for you, man,” Leo said pre-emptively, which Shawn ignored for the horse sh!t it was.

“It’s been a while, Leo. Let’s catch up.”

It wasn’t a question, which Leo seemed to grasp pretty quick. Not that it was going to stop him from letting his irritation fly. “I’ve got work to do. Bills to pay. I don’t have time to catch up with you.”

“Really?” Frankie dusted the word with just enough sugar to sweeten it. “Because we already cleared it with your boss, so…”

Leo cursed, swinging his gaze back to Shawn. “Why are you trying to jam me up?”

“We’re not,” Shawn said honestly. “We’re trying to help you out.”

“You’ve got a fvcked up definition of help,” Leo grumbled. He gave Frankie a slow, unmitigated perusal, and she surprised the hell out of Shawn by standing perfectly still and letting him put her under the microscope. Finally, he lifted a brow at Shawn. “What’d you do to get such a pretty partner this time, anyway? The last guy was cranky as hell.”

Shawn resisted the urge to let his smile escape. The last time he’d been here had been when he and Garza had grabbed some intel for the Gang Unit. It’d been before Garza had started dating his girlfriend, Delia, and back then, his demeanor had ranged from grumpy to grumpy AF.

“I’m smart, too,” Frankie said, her smile flawless as she jerked a thumb in Shawn’s direction. “He really is a lucky bastard, isn’t he?”

Leo blinked, just once, but it was enough. “You must’ve pissed off your boss pretty bad to be stuck with his serious as*s. You a troublemaker or something?”

Frankie lifted one corner of her mouth into a conspiratorial smirk that did its job with perfection, cutting the tension in Leo’s shoulders by half and making Shawn’s thoughts fly wild. “You have no idea.”

“You two done?” Shawn asked, angling Frankie further into Leo’s corner.

She shook her head at Leo like they were in on the world’s biggest secret, playing off Shawn’s (sort of) intentional gruffness like a boss. “So touchy. But he’s right, Leo. We really don’t want to keep you from work. We get that you have things to do.”

Leo’s guard popped back up, his gaze shifting between Frankie and Shawn with caution as he dropped his voice to a low murmur. “Yeah, so. Let’s get this over with, then.”

“You know Alfie Landowski, right?” Shawn asked.

Leo rolled his eyes before narrowing them. “Yeah. He’s a pain in the as*s. Why?”

“Word is, his cousin’s in town, looking to get all entrepreneurial, and he’s got Alfie doing his recruiting.”

Leo’s wiry frame went rigid beneath his coveralls, and oh, they were onto something. “I don’t work that line of business, man.” Leo shook his head more adamantly than garden-variety denial called for. “Drugs make people crazy. I ain’t interested in all that.”

Bingo. “But you’ve clearly heard about it, since you know he’s pushing drugs and not something else.”

Leo took a second for a mental walk-back. Realized his slip-up. Cursed roundly. “Just a guess.”

“Nice try, but no,” Shawn said. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“And I just told you, that ain’t my gig,” Leo snapped. “I’m not trying to go back to jail. My girl would be pissed.”

Frankie took a half-step toward him, making their already out-of-the-way spot in the back of the empty garage bay even more private. “Hey, Leo. We’re not trying to jam you up, remember? No one’s saying you’re on board with Alfie’s new gig.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Something passed through Leo’s eyes—not a lie, but something else, and, ah, of course. “But your brother is. Isn’t he?”

Leo’s body language was all bull’s-eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do,” Frankie said, far more softly than Shawn would’ve. “Just like I think you know that what Alfie’s up to is high risk, and that’s why you stayed away. But Ty didn’t.”

“You think I’m ratting my brother out, you’re f*****g crazy,” Leo said, his voice low but dead serious.

Frankie’s laugh came from the back of her throat, surprising both Shawn and Leo, if looks were anything to go by. “And if you think we want your brother for any of this, you’re f*****g crazy right back. We’re thinking bigger, Leo. And if you help us, we can do our best to keep your brother safe.”

“Your best,” he scoffed, but here, Shawn had to jump in.

“Have I ever lied to you?”

Leo scowled, but had to say, “No.”

“And have I ever not been good on my word?”

A beat of loaded silence. Then, “No.”

“Well, I’m not about to start now. If Ty’s in the middle of this, he’s going to need all the protection he can get, and if you help us, we will give it to him,” Shawn said. “So, why don’t you cut through the crap and tell us what you know about Alfie’s cousin.”

Here, Leo’s pause wasn’t belligerent. For the first time since Shawn had known the guy, actual fear flickered across his face. “You think my girl would be pissed if I went back to jail? That’s nothing compared to how mad she’d be if I got dead.”

“No one’s going to know you talked to us,” Frankie said. “Your boss thinks we’re working with your parole officer, who will back us up if push comes to shove. There’s no one else here”—she gestured to the garage, where they were surrounded by cars and tools but otherwise alone—“and believe me when I tell you, both you and your brother don’t want to be on the wrong side of this. Help us so we can get on top of things.”

“This guy, Alfie’s cousin?” Leo shook his head. “He’s bad news, man.”

“Sebastian Beck,” Frankie said, just a notch above a whisper. Her eyes never left Leo’s, and Christ, even Shawn felt what came next. “We know. I know. It’s why we want at him so badly. It’s why we need you. Come on, Leo. Help us out, here. Please.”

Just like that, all the fight left Leo’s expression. “I don’t know much about Beck, and that’s for real. I’ve never even met the guy. But Alfie…you know. He talks.”

Nothing about that surprised Shawn. “He does.”

“He was hanging out at Bang—you know the place? That nightclub over on Hanson Street?” Leo asked. At Shawn’s nod, he continued. “A week ago, maybe two. He’s all high and bragging to Ty about how he’s got this new gig that’s going to make him a sh!tload of money, and that he’s looking for a few people who want in. But he makes Ty swear to keep it on the down low. Says his cousin, who’s in charge of the whole thing, is real uptight about who he works with.”

So far, the whole thing fell in line with what they knew. “But he trusted Ty enough to bring him in on it.”

“Alfie and Ty have ties from their A Park Phantom days,” Leo said. “And, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s not exactly easy to make a living over on this side of town. Alfie knows Ty needs the money. F**k, we all need the money around here.”

“Do you know anything about the job? How much weight they’re moving? Or where?” Shawn asked, but Leo shook his head.

“My brother didn’t offer, and I’m not dumb enough to ask. Ty told me what I’m telling you, said he could put in a good word with Alfie if I was interested. I told him nah. Like I said, my lady would rip my nuts off if I went back to jail, and this dude, Beck? Let’s just say, I’ve heard stories, and they ain’t the bedtime kind.”

Frankie rocked back on her boot heels, her face flushed with excitement. “So, Alfie is recruiting for Beck,” she said, and Shawn turned toward Leo.

This was going to be the hard part. “We need an in with Alfie.”

“What?” Leo asked, followed quickly by, “Nope. No way. Uh-uh. I’m telling you what I know because you said you’d do right by my brother—and you’d better back that up—but I’m not making any intros.”

“Leo,” Shawn started, but the guy planted his work boots over the oil-stained floor and went full-on Rock of Gibraltar, no budging.

“No. This motherfvcker likes to cut people’s fingers off for fun. I ain’t putting my brother in the middle of that.”

Frankie slipped closer to Leo, meeting his adamant stare with one twice as calm. “I get it, Leo. I do,” she added as he opened his mouth to argue. “But this doesn’t have to be complicated. All we need you to do is put a bug in Alfie’s ear that you know someone who’s interested in buying in and that we can move a lot of weight. That’s it.”

“That’s it?” Leo huffed in disbelief. “Easy for you to say. You want me to vouch for you. If Beck replaces out I know what I know—”

“He won’t.” Shawn sliced the claim sharply enough that Leo stayed quiet, and Shawn took full advantage. “All we need is for you to tell Alfie you know someone good for the job and arrange the first meet. After that, you can disappear.”

“You think that crazy bastard won’t be able to replace me? Or Ty?” Leo asked, but Frankie took the ball from Shawn and ran.

“He won’t ever know. Our cover stories will check out from every angle, and no one will be able to walk this back to you.”

“Okay, but this dude, Beck, is serious. It’s gonna take more than just me vouching for you to get him to sign on.” Leo shook his head. “Two strangers show up in the neighborhood trying to get in on work like that? Beck’s gonna know something’s up.”

Damn it, Leo was right. His vouching for them would be a good start, but they were going to have to show their faces in Alfie’s territory to be trusted. They’d probably have to make a handful of low-level buys to build credibility, too.

Frankie’s expression said she knew Leo had a point. But, clearly, she was committed, because she didn’t blink. “Then we’ll get comfy in the neighborhood before you vouch. Bang, right?”

“Yeah,” Leo said. “Alfie likes clubs. That’s his latest.”

Her spine turned to steel beneath her leather jacket, and oh, hell. Eight years might have passed since they’d been partners, but Shawn knew that look.

“Well, then. I guess we’re all headed out for some fun this weekend.”