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Shit.
“This guy must be smarter than we thought.” I would never say the words out loud, but Finn has no problem. He doesn’t seem too frustrated by our dead end. I guess he’s used to it, being an incompetent cop and all. “Oh, hey, you’ll never guess who I picked up today,” he chuckles.
Finn’s clearly trying to lighten my mood. The kid never learns. I like my place in the dark, and trying to pull me out of it only makes me angrier.
“No guesses?” Finn teases, when I don’t respond. “Aw, come one. I’ll give you three tries—”
“Jesus, shut up,” I growl. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to fight back the pulverizing headache pulsing through my skull. I might need another transfusion of blood or something, I don’t know, all I know is that I feel weak. I hate feeling weak.
I’ll refill myself with Santino’s blood, I tell myself, unsure if it’ll ever actually happen. It’s not often that I lose a purp, and I feel like taking my anger out on the entire city.
Finn huffs over the airwaves. “You know I actually used to like you better before, at least you were polite. I always thought you were the better evil twin...”
I sigh. “... Biff?”
Finn chuckles. “There we go! It only took you one guess! This Santino character doesn’t stand a chance after all.”
I walk out of the alley way, just off of Baker street, that I had been desperately searching for any sign of Santino in. There was no hint of his ghost.
“What did Biff do this time?” I ask, almost curious.
Biff Trigger isn’t actually my twin, he just looks like it. The low-level crook is almost my exact physical doppelganger. He’s also the reason Finn and I ever met in the first place. If I was in the mood, I’d say it was a funny story, but nothing seems funny right now.
“He tried to rape a girl,” Finn tells me.
“... Fucking asshole,” I growl. If having a stupid body double wasn’t so useful, I’d have killed that nuisance long ago. Scum like him don’t deserve to be called criminals. I at least have a code; he doesn’t.
“I have him in an unmarked cell... if you want to take a little anger out...” Finn suggests.
I actually consider it. My left arm throbs but my right arm is still feeling alright. Maybe I could get to thinking clearly if I laid a few fists into that bastard’s familiar face.
“Just say the word...” Finn says sadistically.
“Not right now,” I reject the offer. It’d feel nice to release my anger on the scumbag, but I can’t take on any pleasure until I’ve finished my job. Santino’s still out there somewhere, and I have a feeling he’s close—plus, if I fail, I may need Biff’s familiar looking features to bail me out one last time.
Finn’s patrol car pulls up on the corner of Baker street. I don’t get too close. We can’t let anyone see us together. Even the Barone family doesn’t know just how closely we work together. Finn’s all mine, and as long as no one knows it, we can do great things together... or so I once thought. This whole failure with Santino is going worse than any other venture we’ve ever taken on.
Finn and I first met back when an APB with Biff’s description went out over the airwaves a few years ago. Finn was a young cop looking to make his mark, and he’d been a little overzealous in trying to catch the guy.
The Barone family owns half the cops in this city, and most of them know not to fuck with me—not Finn, though. He was still uninitiated. He found me walking home from dinner and decided to try and pick me up.
Believe me when I say I was seething angry at the inconvenience, but one thing you learn quickly as a career criminal is to always be a polite and gracious suspect. I knew some older, wiser crooked cop would get me out of jail just as quickly as Finn was able to put me in, so I was kinder to the fresh-faced maverick than I should have been.
Finn had really appreciated my attitude. He’d been getting nothing but shit since the day he put on his uniform, and to have a dude twice his size seemingly respect his authority went a long way. Still, he cuffed me and took me in when I didn’t show him ID—I don’t carry personal identification around; never have, never will.
I chatted him up, buttered him a bit, and got ready for a big told-you-so ending.
When a crooked cop stopped us on our way into the station, though, and let the rookie know about his mistake, I didn’t feel the satisfaction I’d been expecting. I kind of liked the little guy. It dawned on me that this could be an opportunity. I was an Irishman in an Italian mob. I had no one truly on my side, but if I could bag a cop, I could be just a little more free.
So, I offered to help him catch Biff. After some hesitation, he agreed, and I tracked down that motherfucker before you could say ‘Fuck You’.
Finn got to go back to the station looking like a hotshot, and I got my dirty cop.
It was a win-win.
This situation we’re currently in with Santino, though, is looking increasingly like a lose-lose.
“At least no-one’s bugging us,” Finn’s voice comes over my earpiece again.
