Page 2 of Newly Tied

Hard to fault his logic.

We both heard the car before we saw it. Lang and I got lucky and were the first ones down to asset forfeiture last time for the new cars and got a 2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo from impound. It was clean inside—so many of the cars were not—and, bonus, the radio worked. Not that Lang and I ever had the same opinion on music, but every now and then we could find some middle ground, especially on a stakeout when it was so late, we were both past caring.

The car came to a sharp, squealing stop and was left idling as Lang threw open the door and got out, looking mad enough to spit nails.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly.

“The hell did I say to you?” he roared as he came up beside me. “If I am more than a block behind you, you do not run down an alley! What if he had friends here?”

But it turned out that I had been the one with friends, and I waved at the two guys who had come to check on me. “They would have backed me up.”

The scowl said he was not convinced.

“This is police brutality,” Vargas complained to my partner.

“Shut up,” Lang barked. “The hell were you thinking, running in this heat?”

Vargas groaned. “Put me in the car, man.”

The car was an oasis of cool, easily a twenty-degree difference, and Vargas and I were quiet, absorbing the change in temperature. We enjoyed the ride, the only sound the blowing of the arctic air through the vents.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get heatstroke.”

I was. Lang was right.

“And now we have to stop and get water so you and our fugitive can hydrate.”

“Yes, please, let’s get some water,” Vargas agreed. “I’m sorry I was stupid before. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

“Do not throw up in this car,” Lang warned, taking a left and turning into a gas station. “I’m going to fucking kill Pazzi.”

I was too tired from running to defend Eric Pazzi. He was a nice enough guy, but somehow or another, if something got screwed up, it was usually because of him. Some guys simply had that kind of shitty luck.

This particular incident had started when we went to the strip club where Vargas was getting a lap dance, and Deputy US Marshal Eric Pazzi had not immediately secured the fugitive because he had not yet run his fingerprints through IAFIS. Technically, until we had a positive ID, we could not say with absolute certainty that we had our fugitive. All we had was a grainy picture from the camera at the warehouse he helped rob, but we had information from a credible source—Vargas’s ex—that his new girlfriend stripped at the Honey Trap and that he would, without a doubt, be there. She even hooked us up with his Instagram account since she’d deleted all evidence of him from her phone, her cloud, and all her social media. So we knew what Albert Vargas looked like, but until we ran his DNA through CODIS, we couldn’t say for certain that the guy now sitting in the back of the car was the person we’d found evidence of at the scene. But since the guys who’d done the job with him had rolled and said that yes, Vargas was the brains of the operation, it was enough to detain him.

I told Pazzi: we take him in and get to the bottom of it.

Pazzi told me we had to run his prints to make sure this guy was actually Albert Vargas, even though the driver’s license he had on him said he was. It was a ridiculous waste of time, and to me, it was Pazzi flexing because he was the senior marshal on site.

I insisted we restrain him while we ran his prints. That was SOP right out of the US marshal manual.

Pazzi didn’t like that, said that could easily become a PR nightmare and would not look good to the community at large. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. But first of all, we were not out in the community, we were in a strip club, and second, I would argue that most people liked to see us restrain fugitives who were a danger to them or their families. So yeah, Pazzi was wrong and I was right, and even his partner, Yamane, admitted that Vargas should be zip-tied while we waited for the proper identification to come through. But then Vargas said he had to pee, and the apprehension went to hell in a handbasket once he climbed out of the bathroom window that, really, I didn’t think a full-grown man could get through. I didn’t waste time trying, instead flying out of the men’s room and out the back door. That had been the beginning of the four-block chase.

Pazzi and Yamane remained at the club and called it in, and Lang and I went after the fugitive, as we were lower in the food chain. Now, as far as I knew, they were still at the club, and I was guarding my exhausted prisoner while we both waited for water and Gatorade.

“I should have stayed in that bathroom,” Vargas whimpered, lying down in the back seat. “Man, I’m getting a headache.”

So was I.

There were ice packs in the glove compartment, the kind you cracked and shook to get cold. I got one for Vargas and leaned between the front seats to put it over his eyes.

“Thanks, man, you’re all right.”

When Lang returned, I got in the back and helped Vargas drink some Gatorade and then gulped down a bottle myself.

“You two ready to go now?” Lang asked sarcastically from the front seat. “Or should I drive through and get lunch while we’re at it?”

“I could eat,” Vargas replied.