"So, our friend, Mikhail, is a street pimp and he turned this girl out, but he was also watching over her legally at the time?" Preston asked, breaking the silence and escaping his darker thoughts about the future. "Since when does a pimp go through the adoption process? It's not like they were related."

Jack continued to sit on the old ragged couch in the corner. In front of him was a battered coffee table holding various manila folders and photographs that had acc.u.mulated in recent days. On the top of the pile, in plain sight, was the old mug shot of Mikhail Phillips.

"Hey, I know about as much as you do, except I bet I can track this guy down," he said, rifling through a few more doc.u.ments. "Guys like this who make it through life as long as he did aren't hard to find. They get slow at his age."

"You have a talent for these things, Detective Paige," Preston said a.s.suredly. "Get back to me when you find something."

"Okay, I'll hit it tomorrow. It's time to be getting home to the wife."

"Have a good one," Preston replied with a casual wave.

A shape caught Preston's attention out of the corner of his eye, standing in the doorway. He watched Jack turn, his partner keeping his face expressionless upon seeing who it was.

"I'll see you tomorrow after you track down that lead. I'll have a little discussion with our guest here," Preston said, looking out the door. Instinctively, he turned over The Twist on his desk, almost without looking. The thud it made on the wood panel seemed loud enough to shake the room.

"Good to see you again, Mr. Argosi," Jack said as he got up and headed out. "How's business?" Jack offered with a rare cruel streak. He was out the door before he could get a response. Judging by the tense look on Mr. Argosi's face and a slight enraged squinting of his eyes, it was clear the man was attempting to hide his anger at the detective's remark. However, he took a seat at Preston's desk without saying so much as a word.

Preston could see the man hadn't exactly entered his office in the highest of spirits in the first place.

"Sorry about that," Preston said, genuinely attempting to appear sympathetic. "We're all just still tied up in this case. Kind of rattles the nerves, you know?"

"That's what we have in common nowadays, isn't it?" Mr. Argosi said. "We just can't seem to get away from it, am I right?" he concluded calmly with an overt hint of cordiality and an equally considerate smile.

Wearing a three-thousand dollar suit, Preston would have a.s.sumed the man was doing just fine in life had he never met him before. In contrast to the detective's own wrinkled blazer and slacks, Mr. Argosi would clearly stand out in any setting, emitting a prestigious air of cla.s.s every time. As the CEO of one of the largest pharmaceutical corporations in the city, it was part of his job.

Argosi's red-brown hair was combed back and styled neatly, but the curled, slightly tangled follicles toward the front betrayed that he had been sweating profusely earlier on, probably due to stress. Jack's insult when he showed up in the doorway didn't help the matter either. Despite the summer heat, Preston knew the beleaguered CEO had plenty of other reasons to perspire.

The years were also beginning to catch up with him. Minute wrinkles were starting to creep in, but remained small enough to barely be noticeable. His waistline had almost certainly grown in recent months. Likely, he'd been trapped helplessly behind a desk or a podium every day, unable to find time to exercise while squeezing in a late meal.

Reading people was a part of the detective's profession and he could see, even without the aid of the headlines, that Benton Argosi wasn't having a good year.

Preston took a quick look toward the trinket on his desk, honestly more interested in the goo moving down the circular incline than what Benton Argosi had to say.

"How ya been?" Preston said, attempting to provide a friendly smile while not quite focusing on his guest.

"Oh, just fine considering," he said, pausing. "It's a little hot today, but I think we've exchanged enough pleasantries, don't you?"

"Yep," Preston replied distantly, forcing a smile. Subtly, he repositioned himself as if showcasing his undivided attention.

A little less than four months earlier, just a few weeks after Bloodstrife first hit the streets and Preston had found himself a.s.signed to the case, some of the first confiscated vials of the drug had the name of Argosi's company, Myers-Echowan, labeled on the small plastic containers. Naturally, he'd been brought in for questioning, along with half of the logistics division of the corporation, but the man had an alibi and a convincing argument.

When those same empty vials were on the highway having just left the factory roughly thirty minutes earlier, a cadre of armed criminals hijacked three trucks worth of the containers, leaving several of the employees dead. One of these employees was Argosi's nephew. By all accounts, they were on good terms when he died.

The CEO himself had been at a late night board meeting attended by several powerful corporate individuals who would have liked nothing more than to see the man go. Nevertheless, they vouched for him.

It had been a madhouse for a while after that. The interviews and interrogations were constant. Preston himself questioned at least fifty people in the coming weeks, three to four per day. Moreover, since the trucks were pulled over by the police only about three hours after they were stolen, Myers-Echowan didn't have enough time to notice they were missing before getting a call from the Chicago PD.

Naturally when word spread that the company had a connection to the case, their stock-price plummeted. Preston had been reading the papers and keeping tabs on the man since. Apparently, he was dealing with a daily struggle to keep himself as the CEO while simultaneously trying to uphold the long, grueling trek back to the top of the pharmaceutical game.

Remarkably, he'd managed to keep his job, especially after a recently published article in the Chicago Herald that quoted a female stockholder who stood up and spoke at the last meeting. Preston thought about it for a moment, but remembered it went something like "Mr. Argosi, are you a drug dealer?" Preston had to admit, he wished that they had been recording it so he could see the look on the man's face when it happened.

A thin and hopefully barely noticeable smile crossed his face, forcing the detective to look away from the CEO.

Preston's instincts said the man wasn't stupid enough to get involved with something like drug peddling on purpose regardless of the publicity, negative or otherwise. A man like him didn't rise to the top of the corporate world without evaluating possible consequences. He would have seen all this coming. I'll keep my eyes open anyway, the Detective added.

"I've come across some information regarding Bloodstrife and I thought you'd be interested," Argosi continued, apparently ignoring Preston's lack of interest and the obviously restrained smile. "It might be a new lead in the case."

"Really?" Preston offered with a casual sigh. "I doubt your company is involved, unless you're here to tell me that something was going on down there after all," Preston said, looking tired. His eyes darted quickly to the trinket, then back to the man across from him.

"Please, Detective Burroughs, I've already been exonerated. We barely got through the public relations nightmare when everyone found out the first confiscated tubes of Strife had been produced by our company. But I needn't remind you it was proven that they were stolen," Argosi said with a calm reticent tone, simultaneously wiping his brow with a handkerchief he produced from his suit. In doing so, the man accidentally threw his hair out of place with the cloth. Now it looked snarled and greasy, adding to the already disheveled appearance of the CEO before him. His suit still looks nice though, the Detective added.

"So, what have you discovered?" Preston asked with limited, but slowly building interest.

"After I made it through the ringer alive, I made sure I was abreast of all dealings in and out of the company. Clearly, things had been getting a little too lax around the office," he said, his reserved tone becoming more p.r.o.nounced. "Furthermore, I was keeping a closer eye on the compet.i.tion. I realized a few days ago that the interstate you captured the vials on is one of the major shipping routes into Chicago for one of my main compet.i.tors."

"The interstate?" Preston asked, hoping that Argosi had more to go on. "That's kind of a broad swath of Chicago, don't you think? I mean, hundreds of companies undoubtedly use it, that's practically what it's there for."

"Don't worry," Argosi said, forcing a small and clearly triumphant sneer. "I've done a considerable amount of the leg work on this one for you already. I'm pretty sure it's them." Instinctively, he brushed the hair that had fallen out of place to the side. He tried subtly to bring out his handkerchief again to wipe off his hand.

"Sure, I'll bite," Preston said. "So, you think they stole these vials to, what? Set you up?" he said, leaning back in his chair. By then, the trinket had run empty and stood motionless on the desk. Preston found it an appropriate juxtaposition to the conversation.

"Think about it," Argosi stated flatly. "Myers-Echowan's share price has dropped precipitously while several of my compet.i.tors have only risen. Admittedly, I would have capitalized on such a thing in their place as well, but I never would have done anything illegal."

"Look, Mr. Argosi, I need to know what you know," Preston said, getting slightly on edge. He checked his watch just conspicuously enough for his guest to notice. Although meant as a signal to speed up the exchange, Preston grew surprised at how late it was when he saw the time.

Argosi cleared his throat and, with hands folded, asked, "Now, I know that I have no official immunity or anything like that, but a man like yourself . . ." He paused, clearly trying to find the right phrase. "I would a.s.sume you wouldn't be interested in, let's say minor infractions involved in this case so long as they led to a bigger catch."

"No," Preston agreed, "I wouldn't as long as it really is minor. I investigate narcotics offenses, specifically those pertaining to Bloodstrife. I don't care about much else these days."

"Good," he said, appearing relieved. "I used some of my remaining influence to check into one of these compet.i.tors I mentioned. As someone who works in the narcotics division, I'm sure you're aware that one of the ways cops tell the location of, say, a marijuana grow house, is when it has off the charts power consumption for a house of a certain size."

Preston nodded while Argosi continued. "I had some people look into the power consumption of the factories along that route and discovered that one of them was consuming far more power than a comparable factory in my company or, more important, a comparable factory of theirs. Other presumably legitimate factories where they produced the exact same thing were consuming far less. I'll give you the location if you keep my name out of it, just to start with."

"Let me guess," Preston said, pursing his lips, "that is, unless it turns out we catch these people. Then Myers-Echowan, and especially you, gets some credit."

"Then the good publicity flows like wine. Yes, that would be the idea, Detective Burroughs," Argosi said with a smile. "I'll have my dues, but regardless of how much my stock price goes back up, you'll be the real winner here. So will the city."

"Alright, then. Give me an address." Preston a.s.sumed this was how Benton Argosi concluded deals in his gla.s.s skysc.r.a.per near the heart of the city. He had to admit, the man was good. Preston slid a piece of paper and a pen across his desk. After scribbling it down, Argosi sent it back. Preston knew immediately where it was. The factory itself was in the industrial district, blended in among the others. However, it was the name of the company that got his heart racing. "Phillips Pharmaceuticals?" Preston asked.

"What's wrong?" Argosi asked with interest. "Does that mean something to you?"

The air was thick with decay, saturated in decades of neglect. Although Jack had dealt with the sadly familiar stench many times as a detective, it was never something he was able to get accustomed to. Crime scenes tended to take the middle-aged detective to the slums and alleyways of Chicago now and then. It was all a part of the job.

After taking a few steps inside the dilapidated building, he instinctively put a handkerchief to his face. There was an almost palpable odor of rot striking him as he moved farther into the structure, more pungent and forceful than he had realized. It was almost certainly emanating from a dead animal, having been left to decompose somewhere within the walls.

Although he didn't see an immediate need for his gun, the diluted darkness offered any number of chances for a surprise. Casually, he brought out his flashlight, centering the narrow beam on the path in front. A lone bulb flickered on and off at the far end of the hall, but it didn't offer enough light to see immediately in front of him. It glowed in the distance, as if accentuating the end of a dim trail.

It was times like these that he kept images of his family fresh in his mind, as if filtering the world with a translucent image of genuine tranquility. His wife, Melissa, had strawberry blonde hair and a sharp wit, always keeping Jack on his toes. Her face was dotted with light freckles, accentuated with deep green eyes.

Then, there was their son, James, who took after his mother. He was the smart one, already reading two grades above his age. Jack's daughter, May, while still young, always spoke about how she would catch bad guys when she grew up. Somehow, with her it seemed more serious than the usual aspirations of a child. He believed it was likely she would achieve her goal.

Despite being a seasoned detective, Jack was beginning to feel as if he were the dunce sitting in the corner of their home, a man standing in the shadows of future intellectual giants. He couldn't have been more proud. It was just the quick flashes that kept him going, a glimpse of them to tide him over until he got home. Jack could almost smell his wife's cooking over the stale stench of mildew and rot permeating his senses.

Quickly, he was back. The building looked as if it had been there for a century, most of that time standing as an abandoned relic. More than likely the building authority was hoping that it would eventually just fall over on its own so they wouldn't have to pay for its demolition. The carpet in the hallway was deteriorating and curling away from the walls. Only large pieces of debris-air conditioners, empty cases of beer and a kitchen appliance or two-held the flaking fabric in place.

He couldn't see them, but the sound of rats scurrying about made him tread lightly.

Moving down the hall with his flashlight still guiding the way, Jack could see the building had once been an old hotel. Most of the numbers had fallen off the doors he pa.s.sed, but occasionally he'd see one with the digits still hanging on for dear life. It wasn't difficult to tell how far he'd gone into the darkness.

He continued slowly, occasionally brushing garbage away with his feet, hoping that the rats were smart enough to stay away from him if they didn't want to catch a bullet.

Graffiti had been painted over in places only to be tagged on the wall again by the next vandal. Most of the windows were covered by it as well, until he came across several broken frames in the wall that allowed the sunlight to enter as he turned the corner beyond the lone light bulb.

Room 106.

Miraculously, the room he was looking for clearly stood out from the rest. The flickering light bulb was right overhead, and the door was free of debris. Jack had no problem going right up to it and knocking softly.

He put the flashlight away and made sure he was ready to draw his gun as he stood to the side. It was a st.u.r.dy Ruger P90, a gun which few of his fellow detectives used due to its size. Jack had always liked the relative feeling of safety it provided. It wasn't just a weapon; it was a shield as well.

There was the sound of movement on the other side, a chair sliding across the floor and something falling to the ground. The m.u.f.fled noise of a voice was just barely discernible.

"My name is Detective Jack Paige. I'm looking for Mikhail Phillips," he said, loud enough for a man of Phillips' age. Judging by the photograph, Jack knew he wouldn't be a problem. However, men like him tended to have a.s.sociates, young upstarts willing to prove themselves.

He heard the m.u.f.fled voice again, this time forced to cautiously press his ear up to the door.

"Come in," it said, soft and raspy.

The door was unlocked. The detective continued standing to the side of the frame as he nudged the door open. It stuck the first time. Then when he applied more force, the door opened quickly, the deadbolt snagging some of the rotting wood along the way. In the end, it sounded almost like he'd kicked it in.

"Don't worry about that," the voice inside said, calling to him. "That thing'll stick like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d no matter how much I try to fix it, which is not much, I can tell ya."

Jack entered slowly, his hand still hovering above his gun.

The s.p.a.ce inside was just like the rest of the hotel except there was less debris littering the floor. The quaint apartment looked as if it had been an agreeable hotel room at some point in the past.

Large red curtains hung loosely from discolored bra.s.s hangers which covered the first floor window. The furniture was ragged, but it all followed the same decorating scheme, more than likely from the 1950s at first glance.

Whoever lived there had allowed it to be gradually swallowed by dust and time, albeit less slowly than the rest of the building. There was electricity, but it appeared just as spotty as the light bulb in the hall. A TV in the corner displayed a grainy old movie on mute.

Jack eventually walked into the kitchen after surveying the living room for other people. Seeing that there were none, he approached and saw the man who had asked him in, sitting at the kitchen table.

"Are you Mikhail Phillips?" Jack asked, letting his hand hang to his side. He was clearly not a threat.

"Call me Long Daddy," the man said with a smile and a cough. "That's what everyone used to call me."

He was a poorly aged African-American man with white hair and a dirty white, ragged beard. His skin was covered in blemishes and sores, probably a disease he picked up on the streets throughout the course of his sad life, or so Jack reasoned. He wore a stained white undershirt and ripped suit pants. His feet were bare, his toenails long and crusty.

A bent spoon and several other implements for shooting heroin were spread across the table. The tourniquet the man was preparing to use looked like it had been fished out of a dumpster. The syringe, however, was clean and new. Jack could see the wrapper lying next to it on the table. Either through theft or charity, the burned-out pimp had managed to find clean needles. However, it was clear the damage had been done.

Detective Paige saw he had walked into this man's life about a minute before he was about to tie himself off.

He took a closer look and saw a baggie of white powder poorly shielded by the man's arm. Phillips attempted to hide it without success by nudging it to the side and flexing his muscles to make his arm bigger.

"I'm going to forget I saw that if you help me out today, sir," Jack said politely. "I think the taxpayers could use a break on trivial arrests. You don't look like a major dealer to me."

"Sure thing, son," the man said with another raspy laugh as he brought his arm back, no longer trying to sustain his half-hearted attempt at secrecy. "Just make it quick, okay? Been a while, y'hear? That monkey is only gettin' stronger, y'know."

Jack walked to the other side of the table, deciding not to sit down as he inspected the vacant, filthy chair. He stepped over some long-forgotten stain on the floor that had dried out unevenly over time, brown and lumpy. Looking around the rest of the kitchen the detective even felt sorry for the bottoms of his shoes.

"You were a pimp back in the day, right?" Jack asked immediately, bringing his gaze back to Phillips. "Maybe you still are-you know, here and there when money's a little tight?"

"The best there was, boy. I coulda turned out any b.i.t.c.h I ever saw, and I did, too. Course, not anymore. Consider myself retired."

"What about this one?" Jack asked, pulling out the autopsy photo of the Jane Doe tentatively known as Pricilla Andrews, Pride, or several other aliases. It was one of the tamer photos that showed only a close-up of her face while she was still alive, posing for the surgeons. Regardless, it still looked like a mug shot.

The man's hand searched the table fruitlessly, hoping to find what Jack a.s.sumed to be eyegla.s.ses. The detective saw them on the counter and handed them to him. Like the syringe, they were cleaner than their owner, standing out in the dirty apartment like a shining jewel.

Phillips fumbled with them for a moment, his hands shaking as he lifted the gla.s.ses to his face. After getting a good look at the picture, he dropped the photo onto the table and let out a sigh.

"What happened to her, Mr. Phillips?" Jack asked. "She worked for you, right?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, drawing out his response clumsily. His mind was clearly fried from years of drug use. "She was given to me by her father. She was one of my best b.i.t.c.hes for a while. Never had another moneymaker like her," he said, trying to take off his gla.s.ses. He struggled with them for a few seconds, unable to gain a proper grip, then latched on tightly. As soon as he removed them from his face, he loosened his grasp, accidentally dropping them onto the table.

"How long did she work for you?" Jack asked, ignoring the pimp's lack of dexterity while staring intently at the man.

"About two years, son. But that was a long time ago, y'see." Phillips had stopped looking at the detective as he spoke. His eyes barely left the drugs on the table. Jack could see he was only half there to start with.

"My research tells me you were her legal guardian. How did that come to be if she was one of your wh.o.r.es?" Noticing that Phillips was still refusing to look at him, Jack snapped his fingers, getting the man's attention. "Hey! Listen," Jack commanded, getting impatient. "Most of the guys I meet on the street who share your profession usually don't go through all the trouble of filling out adoption paperwork."

"Friend of mine," Phillips shot back on the verge of anger. "I bribed him sometimes to get me some free medical for the b.i.t.c.hes or fudge some scripts-you know the drill. It was easy," Phillips said with a cough as he calmed down. "Keeps the cops off my back. Course I could only do that when I was sure I really wanted 'em and that they couldn't leave me. They had to be good, like her, otherwise it was just a waste."

"Okay, so you turned her out for two years, then what happened?" Jack said, his eyes trying to locate the source of a smell that had gradually increased in strength since he arrived.

"She never talked back once. I never had to straighten her out like all the rest of 'em," the broken pimp said with a yellow smile that soon evaporated from his face. Unlike before, he was now totally focused on Jack as he relayed his story. "A regular a'hers kept stopping by, sayin' how he wanted to take her away from me. He'd treat her like a queen-you know, the usual bulls.h.i.t. I didn't like it one bit. Too much invested, too much to lose."

"What happened?" Jack asked.

"I had enough, boy. One day he showed up like usual, whispering in her ear, makin' her laugh. Dude brought her jewelry and candy; a box of chocolates, I think it was." Phillips paused, trying to hold back the sting of anger Jack could see him attempting to suppress. "He came over to me and said he wanted her for reals, that today was gonna be the day and that he always gets what he wants-y'know, the same fiction as always. So, I did what I had to. I took out my b.u.t.terfly blade and stabbed that b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the heart." Phillips paused for a moment as he inhaled deeply. "Then he took her away."

"What do you mean?" Jack said. "You didn't kill him?"

"No," the old man replied before he started to cough. Jack looked around and saw a relatively clean towel on the counter which he handed to the ageing pimp. After coughing into it, Phillips placed it back on the table. Jack noticed the blood on it immediately. It started as a small pattern of speckled crimson that soon spread out from the center.

"Are you alright?" Jack said, half disgusted and only a little concerned.

"Yeah," Phillips replied with a laugh. "I'm not exactly insured. The junk helps take the edge off."

"We can take a break if you want," Jack said, hoping the man would decline. He didn't want to stay in the withered hotel with its withering tenant any longer than he had to.