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“I don’t know.”
“Where?” Bailey said, reaching across the bar to grab the bartender by the shirt and pull him close. “Where, goddamn it, where?”
“I don’t know!” the bartender said. “He left.”
Bailey’s feet started moving toward the door in a rush, the bartender forgotten. By the time he blasted through the doorand out onto the street, he was feeling a tiny bit more sober. Things didn’t feel quite so random and mysterious and spooky.
Harris. It had to be Harris fucking with him for some reason. Nobody else knew about the Cayman account.
He had no idea why Harris would suddenly decide to play head games with him, but he intended to find out. Chase the old bastard down and beat the goddamn reason out of him.
A look to the left down the street, a look to the right. Nothing. Nobody. It was late at night and there was nobody on this side of the street or the other for at least two blocks.
“Hey, man,” a voice said behind him.
“Fuck!” Bailey shouted, actually clutching at his chest, he was so startled. “What the fuck, man?”
“Aw, sorry, buddy, I didn’t mean to scare you like that,” the voice said, deep in the shadows of a nearby alley. It was low and quiet and sounded almost as scared as him.
Bailey saw a pair of legs sticking out of that alley, wearing filthy jeans full of holes worn by long years. A homeless man, panhandler, probably, lying in the relative shelter of the alleyway.
“Can you spare a dollar for me?” the dark alleyway voice said.
“Man, piss off,” Bailey said, waving off the panhandler. “Fuckin’ loser.”
He looked up and down the street again, thoughts racing. Harris, had to be. Right? Maybe not. Maybe. No, had to be.
His head was still wobbly from the booze. He had to pull it together, think straight. Positive ID. That’s what he needed. A positive ID. Be sure of what he was dealing with.
Cameras. In the club. Security cameras, he could go back in, demand that the manager show him the footage and see who had come in and bought that beer for him.
He started feeling better. He had a plan now, a path forward. This was his town. Nobody could screw with him like this. Harris was about to learn. He’d get a positive ID of that old bastard of a fed on the strip club’s security camera, and then he could confront the son of a bitch.
While he was lost in his thoughts, a car drove past, and voice from within it shouted out, “Hey, yo, Bailey!”
By the time he reacted, the car was well past, but he’d been a cop long enough to check the license plate by reflex. Before he could forget it, he tapped it out in the Notes app on his phone.
“Got you now, motherf…” he began, and then his phone rang again.
A startled yelp of surprise, which he cursed himself for, and then he answered it. It was the same number as had called him before.
“Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with?” he shouted at the phone.
“I know exactly who I’m fucking with,” the female voice said. “Ryan Edward Bailey. Badge number 73611. Proud owner of a not so secret account in the Cayman Islands. How fast does thirty grand spend, Officer Bailey?”
“Oh, so funny. So scary. Nice try, bitch. You tell Harris he can shove this cloak and dagger shit up his ass. You hear me?”
“I hear you just fine. Who’s Harris?”
“Oh, who’s Harris. Very clever. Dumb bitch. I know it’s him. Nobody else knows about that account, dummy. He’s the one who set it up for me.”
“Harris did?”
Bailey sneered at his phone, as if the caller could see it. “You know, I don’t know who you are, or how you know Harris, but you tell him that FBI agents ain’t the only ones with juice. You hear me? These are my goddamn streets.”
“Is that so?”
“And after I’m done with him, I’m gonna come for the… for the… going to come for you.”
