Episode Three

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Voyage, meet village, feet villageet
village. Lisa roared down the street,

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putting distance between us and Brownsville.
Sirens could be heard in the distance.

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Reggie gazed with interest at the unconscious
murderer. Every visit to Brownsville is exciting.

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We took the shoot at the Lisa's
house. She had a soundproofed basement

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where she'd see clients. His name
was Curtis. We asked him why he

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shot the dealer Blaze, who supposedly
knew something about where we could find Destiny.

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He wouldn't say. Reggie threatened to
break his twenty four ribs one punch

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at a time and watch him choke
on his blood from internal injuries. Curtis

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talked, he didn't know where Destiny
was, but he identified Monjerie as a

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courier working for the cartel. She
worked for the cartel's local distributor, Cortez,

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who operated out of an auto garage. Before we could figure out what

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to do with Curtis, there was
a knock at Lisa's door. Our visitor

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was James Robinson aka Chill. Reggie
and I had previously encountered him at Betsy

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Head Park in Brownsville. He was
a swagger and drug dealer, habitually dressed

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in a perfectly groomed camel's hair coat. He clearly followed us to Lisa's home.

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It was the coat that told me
immediately who James Robinson was. A

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tall, whiplash lean young man.
I could see lean cheeks, dark flashing

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eyes, a firm jaw. He
could have hit a movie star. He

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smiled genuine as hell, and it
lit the room. You were a long

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way from Betsy had what you were
to speak privately with tone. Hey,

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anything you say to me, you
can say to them. What do you

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want to talk about? A tray? What for? What? Curtis deal

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for? Destiny Hunter? What the
hell do you know about Destiny Hunter?

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We reluctantly led James inside. He
was outnumbered and outgunned. He wasn't going

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to harm any of us if he
wanted to survive the night. What are

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you gonna tell me about her?
Destiny? She occur her for the cartel

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man. What she's a student at
Brooklyn University. I know that, but

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I also work with her. She
ad go between for the distributors in street

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Deal. How the hell did that
happen? Monjerie? Where is she Now,

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nobody's seen her for weeks. Man, Tony, she bounced, you're

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telling me she worked for Cortez.
Year y'all hear about that heist right two

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point four million of blow three,
maybe four weeks ago, right about the

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time Destiny disappeared. It is,
it's being sold off in Hell's kitchen Muldoon's

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territory. How's Destiny tightened? All
that? Your problem? So where's raditat?

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Who's that Curtis? I patted James
down and we all escorted him downstairs

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to Curtis. Reggie stripped the duct
tape off Curtis's mouth, but before he

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could say anything, James casually reached
down and came up with a small Boar

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twenty two handgun from a concealed mini
holster on his ankle. I'd missed it.

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He lined the rod up on Curtis's
chest and pumped two shells into his

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heart. Curtis's chest let out an
audible sigh, His head slumped sideways onto

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his shoulder, and he never moved
again. I stared at his corpse,

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shocked into motionlessness as I stood there
in Lisa's basement, the now dead body

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of Curtis Dell slumped on the chair
in front of me. His killer chill

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a KAA. James Robinson, true
to his nickname, acted as if he

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delivered me the wrong lunch order.
It needed to be done, but I

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take no pleasure in it. He
still had his twenty two, but I

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knew he wasn't a threat to me. I didn't have my nine millimeter Molly

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ready at hand, but I wouldn't
shoot this kid anyway. He just walked

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out. We let him go.
I mean, what were we gonna do

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arrest him for shooting our hostage.
Stevie had a friend whose boat could be

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used for situations like this. The
ancient skiff puttered slowly down the river,

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marking Curtis Tell's forlorn funeral procession.
It was a cold mid March night,

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especially on the water on which it
seemed spring would never come. The night

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was moonless, dark, and stars
glittered like distant jewels on a black satin

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background. The wind whipped us like
it held a personal grudge. It was

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late. We sat above decks.
Curtis's cold corpse was stuffed in a trunk,

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waited with umbells and stashed in a
secret compartment of a whole reeking of

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dead fish, a stencil overpowering it, confounded the best efforts of DA dogs

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seeking drugs that Stevie's former associates had
long smuggled. We sat, bundled in

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down coats and knit caps. I
had a metal flask of brandy. Stevie

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at the con drank only sparingly Reggie, who worshiped his body like a holy

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vessel, not at all more for
us. I passed the flask to Stevie

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again. You've got a thing for
Lisa. It's that obvious. Let me

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tell you something about it, because
fore worn is forearmed. Okay, she

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gave me a shiner once. It
took me damn near ten minutes, the

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subdure, the pennant of the floor, and a loft or rileder like that.

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You cheat on it? Hell no, you got Lisa via girl.

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Why would you look at someone else? Then? Why? An old friend

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from my parents building? Swore I
stiffed around a deal and Lisa wouldn't hear

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different. Eventually we can in front
of the chick up down a riverside,

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and she confessed. I kept my
arm Lisa the whole time. As soon

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as she heard the truth, she
swung. I grabbed her arm and let

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the force of a blow swinger around. By the time she was straight,

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the lion bitch was gone. She
looked at me, those dark eyes flashing

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hard. I said, let it
go. We have each other. And

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her eyes changed and she came into
my arms. She loved you, black

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eye and all. He laughed,
running his right hand across his left eye.

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It was all a shine to Tony. It was black, blue orange,

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and it stunned. And she may
be only five four, but she

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can hit. Don't think she can't. The school teacher said, she got

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a devil inside her teachers and lie, she make it up to you.

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He nodded his head and smiling,
Yeah she did. She's a wild Tony,

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but loving like nobody else you'll ever
know. There was silence, and

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I felt its presence, this heavy
internal weight. Me and Reggie and Stevie,

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the three of us on a windswept
boat, on a dark mission,

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on a dark night, the heist
destiny Muldoon. Now many people can connect

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all those dots, you know,
Muldoon. His eyes couldn't have flashmore astonishment.

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Yeah, Muldoon treated me almost like
the family. But Lisa was the

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one he really loved the daughter we
never had. What do you think it

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was me? The heist in the
cartel? Was it you trem into the

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bulls? I did it? We
don't give a rat's ass about the cartel.

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He stand from one of us to
the other in as good an act

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of incredulity if it wasn't real as
I had ever seen. His eyes couldn't

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have flashmore astonishment if I'd accused him
of being an alien invader from the crab

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Nebula. I was buy an end, desperate to retain my grasp of certainty.

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I said, there's a huge upsurge
of trafficking and Hell's Kitchen in the

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Upper West Side. You have the
brains and the testicles to hijack and cartel

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shipment and traffic in Hell's Kitchen.
People like you could be counted on one

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hand. Stevie nodded. Then he
threw back his head and he laughed.

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His laugh filled the air with a
pure sound of delight, a simple sound

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of surprise, of joyousness at the
twisted turns and absurd accusations that might creep

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unexpected into one's life. It was
a sound capable of being uttered only by

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a soul that swashbuckled in the daylight
and slept peacefully in the night. He

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punched his chest with his right hand, trying to stifle his laughter. Dude,

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due, I appreciate the respect I
do, and I got no problem

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with some smart boy hard rocks.
Heighten these bastards the lives they wipe out.

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But do you realize the kind of
inside information and the degree of planning

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it would take the hijack the stone
call killers, the type of precision operation

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they run and live to fight another
day. I'm flattered, I am truly

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flattered. But it wasn't me.
Looked me in the eyes and swear you

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didn't do it, and I'll believe
you. Tony Reggie. I sweate you

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on Lisa's life, on my own
life, that I am not involved,

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nor have I been, in any
heist of the cartown. His eyes were

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alight with deviltry. I could see
him mocking us, telling us both to

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go screw ourselves, then swatted up
off the boat and swimming home. He

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was capable of him, but he
didn't do it. He looked from one

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of us into the other. Tony
Reggie, I swear to you, on

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Lisa's life, on my own life
that I am not involved, nor have

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I been in any heights of the
cartown. I believe him. Shit,

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I thought, I have no clue
who pulled this job. I've been on

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this case for weeks and I haven't
a clue. A great smart ass detective,

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I am. We'd hit the cartel
location we'd gotten from Blaze sometime tomorrow.

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I was too tired to think about
it. The faint glow of lights

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on Long Island shimmered in the distance. Brandier No, I was benumbed,

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and nothing sounded so good as a
hot meal, a hot shower, and

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a warm bed. The wind still
blew hard in our face. We had

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Curtisdell's body on deck. Reggie and
Stevie hefted the weighted trunk. They dropped

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his cold body in the cold sea, and he was instantly swallowed up in

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its cold depths. We observed a
moment of silence, not for a stone

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killer, but for wasted human potential. Then Stevie again took the Khan and

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turned the boat around. He pushed
forward the throttle leven higher the old engines

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power in his home school announced the
subject oh Nietzsche's influence in Jack London's the

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seawall you knew, Humphrey van Waden. There's a master plan afoot. It'll

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makes sense to you when you read
my essay. Okay, we'll let the

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carve at some writing time after we
see Quartez. Honey, I know will

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be super careful. Careful is not
in your nature? Where's Nikki Mickey's gone?

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The silence in the room was total. You could faintly hear the traffic

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on the street and in the distance
New York City's endless sirens. Her pain

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was manifest, and I empathized,
but I was simultaneously filled with elation.

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I held myself back from the obvious
question and asked another one instead. Where'd

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he go? Why? It doesn't
matter? He was never going to get

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clean. For years now it hasn't
been good. I don't know what'll happen

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to him now. She looked at
me suddenly, with desperation in her eyes.

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Tony, don't go against the cartel, please? I told her we

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wouldn't. Technically it was true.
That's what I tried to think. Is

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Reggie and I drove to Cortes's garage
the next day. Why are we doing

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this? She's Lee's assistant. That
makes it practically family to us. Someone

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steps in dogs shit in a field
of dogs shit they knowingly walked into.

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I don't think it's our responsibility to
buy them new shoe. You can bounce

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if you need to. I won't
be man. I finished my essay last

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night. My day's free. We
rolled up the street until we reached Cortes's

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garage. We got out, strolled
around the lock, and strutted inside.

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I looked around. There were no
witnesses. A mechanic had a batted sedan

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on the hoist. His dark hair
was covered in sweat. He was short,

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stocky, and muscles bulged in his
arms like overstrained houses. He wore

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a white tank top and baggy dark
pants. He had dark blue tattoos stretching

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from either shoulder down his arms.
One was of a mustachioed man in a

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dark suit in for Dora, pointing
a handgun. The other was of a

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victim taking shots from the gun in
his midsection. This aldero had the butt

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of a cigarette in his mouth.
We pulled on gloves and ski masks.

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My right hand clutched Mollie in my
jacket pocket. My left groped for the

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switch controlling the front gate. The
gate started to roll down. The Saldero

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looked surprised before he looked belligerent.
Reggie hit him once a short modulated left

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to the point of his jaw,
and he collapsed like an imploded building.

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I nodded the Reggie watched for cops
on their payroll. I started up a

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short flight of grease stained wooden stairs
to a glass enclosed office. A big

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guy in black sweat came out with
a pistol in his hand, but I

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got molly under his chin, pointed
up his drain. Before he could turn

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to me, I shoved him into
the office. Inside, a wiry dude

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with a shock of black hair sat
behind the desk. He'd heard the commotion

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and had the baleful snout of an
AAR fifteen pointed my way, Cortez.

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I guessed one question, one answer, or I then late your co over

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here. We just want to know
what you did to Destiny Hunter. They're

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coming. Locked the doors the thief. You're here for her? She stole

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from us. How'd you know it
was herne The shimmon was coming. I

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could hear a police car roaring up
towards the garage. Siren on what happened

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to her. I don't know if
she ran. If we find Destiny with

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your coke or the money from the
sale of your coke, we'll return all

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the drugs or cash to him.
But you need to leave a bee after

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that. Do it, and there's
a conversation to be had. I can't

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promise more than that. I started
down the stairs. Something was tugging around

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in my brain, but I didn't
have it yet. Reggie and I flattened.

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We went over side fences and kept
going over him toward the avenue one,

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which we parked. We got in
the car and slowly rolled out of

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there. We shoved ski masks and
gloves into a plastic trash bag some twenty

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blocks away. Reggie hopped out and
shoved it near the bottom of a garbage

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filled restaurant thumpster. At the speed
limit. We drove silently out of Brown's,

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though we were well on our way
to Bedstye before Reggie spoke, did

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you get what you needed? Grimly, I nodded. I knew were to

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find the answers, and tonight alone
I would do it. Okay, okay,

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what I'll tell you? What the
hell is destiny? Really everything.

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She went by Channel Chisholm, nicknamed
Chaci in her youth. She came from

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rural Jamaica, a poor family.
She ran off from brutal farm work as

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a child. We don't know how
old. Makes her way to Kingston,

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lives by her wits, eventually emigrace
to the US, where my parents adopted

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her in her early teens. Things
were great between us, but the trauma

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of her youth never left her.
She couldn't be in someone else's care had

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always made her uneasy. She was
like a street dog that couldn't adopt app

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to a loving home. So she
emancipated herself at eighteen, Sharp as a

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hatchet, pretty as a show cat, cool as the trade winds, she

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makes her way from pickpocket to credit
card fraud consort of lonely millionaires, bilking

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them for cash. Works this last
angle successfully for years. Eventually, with

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chains and pipes beaten within three millimeters
of life by a drug gang she defrauded.

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She crawls back to me and promises
she's going straight. I guess she

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didn't. Why didn't you tell me? I thought you wouldn't look for her?

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Are you kidding? She's your sister? Yet I killed ten men to

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find your cat, Lisa, you
need me to say it out loud.

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We were seated close to each other. She put her hands on me,

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something between an apology and a thank
you. I kissed her. She twisted

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in my arms. Her arms went
around my neck and kissed her again.

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I continued to kiss her. I
refused to stop kissing her. I bent

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and scooped her in my arms,
carried her slender form into the living room

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and laid her down on the sofa. It had been as long for her

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as it was for me. Afterwards, we lay together, unmoving, incapable

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of moving, in each other's arms
and breathed. We lay together for long

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moments of quiet. She fell asleep. Eventually I got up and got a

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glass of tap water from the kitchen. As giddily happy as I was,

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that something nagged at me again,
from the deep recesses of my brain and

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intuition that would only get louder until
it was dealt with. Feeling my heart

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beat against my chest, wanting to
stop my legs from moving, I crept

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down the basement stairs. A dim
light from the kitchen illuminated the room,

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but I knew my way even if
it pitch black. There was a painting

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on the wall behind it was Lisa's
wall safe, the wall safe to which

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she had long ago given me a
key. Finally I understood why I was

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certain she had not subsequently changed the
lock, and it hit me. The

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whole goddamn scheme fell at the place
I'd had all the pieces, had them

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for days. I could have should
have put this together days ago, but

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only now it coalesced. I thought
of Stevie's words, his words on the

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boat, and I shook my head
at how I had missed what was right

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in front of me. For a
moment, I stood and marveled at the

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scheme, so simple yet so complex, drawing into her web the man who

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loved her, drawing him in.
For multiple reasons, but one overriding reason,

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I was certain of it. Lisa
should have been a marine, simplify,

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always faithful, whatever devil stocked the
clandestine byways of a soul, never

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faithless to a man as such,
certain that a man would never be faithless

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to her, and never turned her
into the heads. I slipped the key

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into the lock. It fits snugly, and the door swung open, readily,

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swung wide. I hadn't even shined
the flash from my phone inside,

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but I knew what I would find. For a moment, I paused,

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how could I have missed it?
Destiny Cortez's lover knew when and where the

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shipment arrived. She was terrified,
would never rob a drug gang again.

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But she knew somebody who was just
this side of fearless and mentioned it.

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Somebody expert with a gun, somebody
with a devil inside her, somebody who

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would go against the cartel the way
some climber's free solo three thousand foot vertical

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rock faces. Lisa had access to
Muldoon, who regarded her like a daughter.

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She knew she could sell the blow
for over two million, and that

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it would be trafficked in Hell's Kitchen
and on the upper west side. I

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was about to shine the light inside
when I heard a noise from above.

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I turned off the light silently.
I pushed the door almost shut, listened

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00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:06.000
slight sounds came from the rear door
of the lock being picked picked quietly,

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expertly by professionals. I pulled Molly, I held her in my right hand

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and got on the floor. Was
it the d ea? I wouldn't shoot

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federal offices. If it was them, I would just surrender, but with

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it. When all hope of saving
Lisa from long years in the ice box

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was at the cartel, I made
my way back to the sofa, but

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Lisa was gone. She had heard
the noise too. I rolled behind Lisa's

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sofa. These would not be cortez
vacarios. These would be hitmen from Mexico,

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professionals. I breathed, trying to
calm myself. How many of them

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would there be? Probably two?
Again, silently, I snarled. My

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nine was fully loaded. The back
door opened. It was the slightest squeak,

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but my hearing was so attuned I
could hear an ant cough even now

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and want them going after her.
Even after she suckered me and played with

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my life, I was still determined
to save hers. My hands shook gunfights

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with professional killers when nobody's idea of
fun. I tried to breathe slowly.

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I pointed my phone at the far
wall. I switched on the light and

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ducked behind the sofa. There they
were, two of them, illuminated in

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the glare. Instantly they cut loose
redmeat. Village is a production of voyage

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Media. The series is produced by
nat Mondel, Robert Midas, and Dan

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00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:45.279
Bendimore. Directed, produced, and
adopted by Dan Bettimore, based on Andrew

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00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:49.039
Bernstein's upcoming novel at the same name. When a link to the novel is

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available, it will be listed in
the show notes. Starring Catherine Bell as

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00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:57.759
Lisa, Malik Yoba as Reggie,
and Ryan Heppy as Tony. Additional cast

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00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:03.160
credits are available and showed edited,
sound design and mixed by Nick Missidi,

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00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:07.640
original music by Derlas Gonzalez. If
you're enjoying the show, please leave us

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00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:11.880
a five star review and Apple Podcasts
or anywhere you're listening and subscribe now for

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00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:12.880
future episodes.