Voyage, meet village, feet villageet village. Lisa roared down the street,
putting distance between us and Brownsville. Sirens could be heard in the distance.
Reggie gazed with interest at the unconscious murderer. Every visit to Brownsville is exciting.
We took the shoot at the Lisa's house. She had a soundproofed basement
where she'd see clients. His name was Curtis. We asked him why he
shot the dealer Blaze, who supposedly knew something about where we could find Destiny.
He wouldn't say. Reggie threatened to break his twenty four ribs one punch
at a time and watch him choke on his blood from internal injuries. Curtis
talked, he didn't know where Destiny was, but he identified Monjerie as a
courier working for the cartel. She worked for the cartel's local distributor, Cortez,
who operated out of an auto garage. Before we could figure out what
to do with Curtis, there was a knock at Lisa's door. Our visitor
was James Robinson aka Chill. Reggie and I had previously encountered him at Betsy
Head Park in Brownsville. He was a swagger and drug dealer, habitually dressed
in a perfectly groomed camel's hair coat. He clearly followed us to Lisa's home.
It was the coat that told me immediately who James Robinson was. A
tall, whiplash lean young man. I could see lean cheeks, dark flashing
eyes, a firm jaw. He could have hit a movie star. He
smiled genuine as hell, and it lit the room. You were a long
way from Betsy had what you were to speak privately with tone. Hey,
anything you say to me, you can say to them. What do you
want to talk about? A tray? What for? What? Curtis deal
for? Destiny Hunter? What the hell do you know about Destiny Hunter?
We reluctantly led James inside. He was outnumbered and outgunned. He wasn't going
to harm any of us if he wanted to survive the night. What are
you gonna tell me about her? Destiny? She occur her for the cartel
man. What she's a student at Brooklyn University. I know that, but
I also work with her. She ad go between for the distributors in street
Deal. How the hell did that happen? Monjerie? Where is she Now,
nobody's seen her for weeks. Man, Tony, she bounced, you're
telling me she worked for Cortez. Year y'all hear about that heist right two
point four million of blow three, maybe four weeks ago, right about the
time Destiny disappeared. It is, it's being sold off in Hell's kitchen Muldoon's
territory. How's Destiny tightened? All that? Your problem? So where's raditat?
Who's that Curtis? I patted James down and we all escorted him downstairs
to Curtis. Reggie stripped the duct tape off Curtis's mouth, but before he
could say anything, James casually reached down and came up with a small Boar
twenty two handgun from a concealed mini holster on his ankle. I'd missed it.
He lined the rod up on Curtis's chest and pumped two shells into his
heart. Curtis's chest let out an audible sigh, His head slumped sideways onto
his shoulder, and he never moved again. I stared at his corpse,
shocked into motionlessness as I stood there in Lisa's basement, the now dead body
of Curtis Dell slumped on the chair in front of me. His killer chill
a KAA. James Robinson, true to his nickname, acted as if he
delivered me the wrong lunch order. It needed to be done, but I
take no pleasure in it. He still had his twenty two, but I
knew he wasn't a threat to me. I didn't have my nine millimeter Molly
ready at hand, but I wouldn't shoot this kid anyway. He just walked
out. We let him go. I mean, what were we gonna do
arrest him for shooting our hostage. Stevie had a friend whose boat could be
used for situations like this. The ancient skiff puttered slowly down the river,
marking Curtis Tell's forlorn funeral procession. It was a cold mid March night,
especially on the water on which it seemed spring would never come. The night
was moonless, dark, and stars glittered like distant jewels on a black satin
background. The wind whipped us like it held a personal grudge. It was
late. We sat above decks. Curtis's cold corpse was stuffed in a trunk,
waited with umbells and stashed in a secret compartment of a whole reeking of
dead fish, a stencil overpowering it, confounded the best efforts of DA dogs
seeking drugs that Stevie's former associates had long smuggled. We sat, bundled in
down coats and knit caps. I had a metal flask of brandy. Stevie
at the con drank only sparingly Reggie, who worshiped his body like a holy
vessel, not at all more for us. I passed the flask to Stevie
again. You've got a thing for Lisa. It's that obvious. Let me
tell you something about it, because fore worn is forearmed. Okay, she
gave me a shiner once. It took me damn near ten minutes, the
subdure, the pennant of the floor, and a loft or rileder like that.
You cheat on it? Hell no, you got Lisa via girl.
Why would you look at someone else? Then? Why? An old friend
from my parents building? Swore I stiffed around a deal and Lisa wouldn't hear
different. Eventually we can in front of the chick up down a riverside,
and she confessed. I kept my arm Lisa the whole time. As soon
as she heard the truth, she swung. I grabbed her arm and let
the force of a blow swinger around. By the time she was straight,
the lion bitch was gone. She looked at me, those dark eyes flashing
hard. I said, let it go. We have each other. And
her eyes changed and she came into my arms. She loved you, black
eye and all. He laughed, running his right hand across his left eye.
It was all a shine to Tony. It was black, blue orange,
and it stunned. And she may be only five four, but she
can hit. Don't think she can't. The school teacher said, she got
a devil inside her teachers and lie, she make it up to you.
He nodded his head and smiling, Yeah she did. She's a wild Tony,
but loving like nobody else you'll ever know. There was silence, and
I felt its presence, this heavy internal weight. Me and Reggie and Stevie,
the three of us on a windswept boat, on a dark mission,
on a dark night, the heist destiny Muldoon. Now many people can connect
all those dots, you know, Muldoon. His eyes couldn't have flashmore astonishment.
Yeah, Muldoon treated me almost like the family. But Lisa was the
one he really loved the daughter we never had. What do you think it
was me? The heist in the cartel? Was it you trem into the
bulls? I did it? We don't give a rat's ass about the cartel.
He stand from one of us to the other in as good an act
of incredulity if it wasn't real as I had ever seen. His eyes couldn't
have flashmore astonishment if I'd accused him of being an alien invader from the crab
Nebula. I was buy an end, desperate to retain my grasp of certainty.
I said, there's a huge upsurge of trafficking and Hell's Kitchen in the
Upper West Side. You have the brains and the testicles to hijack and cartel
shipment and traffic in Hell's Kitchen. People like you could be counted on one
hand. Stevie nodded. Then he threw back his head and he laughed.
His laugh filled the air with a pure sound of delight, a simple sound
of surprise, of joyousness at the twisted turns and absurd accusations that might creep
unexpected into one's life. It was a sound capable of being uttered only by
a soul that swashbuckled in the daylight and slept peacefully in the night. He
punched his chest with his right hand, trying to stifle his laughter. Dude,
due, I appreciate the respect I do, and I got no problem
with some smart boy hard rocks. Heighten these bastards the lives they wipe out.
But do you realize the kind of inside information and the degree of planning
it would take the hijack the stone call killers, the type of precision operation
they run and live to fight another day. I'm flattered, I am truly
flattered. But it wasn't me. Looked me in the eyes and swear you
didn't do it, and I'll believe you. Tony Reggie. I sweate you
on Lisa's life, on my own life, that I am not involved,
nor have I been, in any heist of the cartown. His eyes were
alight with deviltry. I could see him mocking us, telling us both to
go screw ourselves, then swatted up off the boat and swimming home. He
was capable of him, but he didn't do it. He looked from one
of us into the other. Tony Reggie, I swear to you, on
Lisa's life, on my own life that I am not involved, nor have
I been in any heights of the cartown. I believe him. Shit,
I thought, I have no clue who pulled this job. I've been on
this case for weeks and I haven't a clue. A great smart ass detective,
I am. We'd hit the cartel location we'd gotten from Blaze sometime tomorrow.
I was too tired to think about it. The faint glow of lights
on Long Island shimmered in the distance. Brandier No, I was benumbed,
and nothing sounded so good as a hot meal, a hot shower, and
a warm bed. The wind still blew hard in our face. We had
Curtisdell's body on deck. Reggie and Stevie hefted the weighted trunk. They dropped
his cold body in the cold sea, and he was instantly swallowed up in
its cold depths. We observed a moment of silence, not for a stone
killer, but for wasted human potential. Then Stevie again took the Khan and
turned the boat around. He pushed forward the throttle leven higher the old engines
power in his home school announced the subject oh Nietzsche's influence in Jack London's the
seawall you knew, Humphrey van Waden. There's a master plan afoot. It'll
makes sense to you when you read my essay. Okay, we'll let the
carve at some writing time after we see Quartez. Honey, I know will
be super careful. Careful is not in your nature? Where's Nikki Mickey's gone?
The silence in the room was total. You could faintly hear the traffic
on the street and in the distance New York City's endless sirens. Her pain
was manifest, and I empathized, but I was simultaneously filled with elation.
I held myself back from the obvious question and asked another one instead. Where'd
he go? Why? It doesn't matter? He was never going to get
clean. For years now it hasn't been good. I don't know what'll happen
to him now. She looked at me suddenly, with desperation in her eyes.
Tony, don't go against the cartel, please? I told her we
wouldn't. Technically it was true. That's what I tried to think. Is
Reggie and I drove to Cortes's garage the next day. Why are we doing
this? She's Lee's assistant. That makes it practically family to us. Someone
steps in dogs shit in a field of dogs shit they knowingly walked into.
I don't think it's our responsibility to buy them new shoe. You can bounce
if you need to. I won't be man. I finished my essay last
night. My day's free. We rolled up the street until we reached Cortes's
garage. We got out, strolled around the lock, and strutted inside.
I looked around. There were no witnesses. A mechanic had a batted sedan
on the hoist. His dark hair was covered in sweat. He was short,
stocky, and muscles bulged in his arms like overstrained houses. He wore
a white tank top and baggy dark pants. He had dark blue tattoos stretching
from either shoulder down his arms. One was of a mustachioed man in a
dark suit in for Dora, pointing a handgun. The other was of a
victim taking shots from the gun in his midsection. This aldero had the butt
of a cigarette in his mouth. We pulled on gloves and ski masks.
My right hand clutched Mollie in my jacket pocket. My left groped for the
switch controlling the front gate. The gate started to roll down. The Saldero
looked surprised before he looked belligerent. Reggie hit him once a short modulated left
to the point of his jaw, and he collapsed like an imploded building.
I nodded the Reggie watched for cops on their payroll. I started up a
short flight of grease stained wooden stairs to a glass enclosed office. A big
guy in black sweat came out with a pistol in his hand, but I
got molly under his chin, pointed up his drain. Before he could turn
to me, I shoved him into the office. Inside, a wiry dude
with a shock of black hair sat behind the desk. He'd heard the commotion
and had the baleful snout of an AAR fifteen pointed my way, Cortez.
I guessed one question, one answer, or I then late your co over
here. We just want to know what you did to Destiny Hunter. They're
coming. Locked the doors the thief. You're here for her? She stole
from us. How'd you know it was herne The shimmon was coming. I
could hear a police car roaring up towards the garage. Siren on what happened
to her. I don't know if she ran. If we find Destiny with
your coke or the money from the sale of your coke, we'll return all
the drugs or cash to him. But you need to leave a bee after
that. Do it, and there's a conversation to be had. I can't
promise more than that. I started down the stairs. Something was tugging around
in my brain, but I didn't have it yet. Reggie and I flattened.
We went over side fences and kept going over him toward the avenue one,
which we parked. We got in the car and slowly rolled out of
there. We shoved ski masks and gloves into a plastic trash bag some twenty
blocks away. Reggie hopped out and shoved it near the bottom of a garbage
filled restaurant thumpster. At the speed limit. We drove silently out of Brown's,
though we were well on our way to Bedstye before Reggie spoke, did
you get what you needed? Grimly, I nodded. I knew were to
find the answers, and tonight alone I would do it. Okay, okay,
what I'll tell you? What the hell is destiny? Really everything.
She went by Channel Chisholm, nicknamed Chaci in her youth. She came from
rural Jamaica, a poor family. She ran off from brutal farm work as
a child. We don't know how old. Makes her way to Kingston,
lives by her wits, eventually emigrace to the US, where my parents adopted
her in her early teens. Things were great between us, but the trauma
of her youth never left her. She couldn't be in someone else's care had
always made her uneasy. She was like a street dog that couldn't adopt app
to a loving home. So she emancipated herself at eighteen, Sharp as a
hatchet, pretty as a show cat, cool as the trade winds, she
makes her way from pickpocket to credit card fraud consort of lonely millionaires, bilking
them for cash. Works this last angle successfully for years. Eventually, with
chains and pipes beaten within three millimeters of life by a drug gang she defrauded.
She crawls back to me and promises she's going straight. I guess she
didn't. Why didn't you tell me? I thought you wouldn't look for her?
Are you kidding? She's your sister? Yet I killed ten men to
find your cat, Lisa, you need me to say it out loud.
We were seated close to each other. She put her hands on me,
something between an apology and a thank you. I kissed her. She twisted
in my arms. Her arms went around my neck and kissed her again.
I continued to kiss her. I refused to stop kissing her. I bent
and scooped her in my arms, carried her slender form into the living room
and laid her down on the sofa. It had been as long for her
as it was for me. Afterwards, we lay together, unmoving, incapable
of moving, in each other's arms and breathed. We lay together for long
moments of quiet. She fell asleep. Eventually I got up and got a
glass of tap water from the kitchen. As giddily happy as I was,
that something nagged at me again, from the deep recesses of my brain and
intuition that would only get louder until it was dealt with. Feeling my heart
beat against my chest, wanting to stop my legs from moving, I crept
down the basement stairs. A dim light from the kitchen illuminated the room,
but I knew my way even if it pitch black. There was a painting
on the wall behind it was Lisa's wall safe, the wall safe to which
she had long ago given me a key. Finally I understood why I was
certain she had not subsequently changed the lock, and it hit me. The
whole goddamn scheme fell at the place I'd had all the pieces, had them
for days. I could have should have put this together days ago, but
only now it coalesced. I thought of Stevie's words, his words on the
boat, and I shook my head at how I had missed what was right
in front of me. For a moment, I stood and marveled at the
scheme, so simple yet so complex, drawing into her web the man who
loved her, drawing him in. For multiple reasons, but one overriding reason,
I was certain of it. Lisa should have been a marine, simplify,
always faithful, whatever devil stocked the clandestine byways of a soul, never
faithless to a man as such, certain that a man would never be faithless
to her, and never turned her into the heads. I slipped the key
into the lock. It fits snugly, and the door swung open, readily,
swung wide. I hadn't even shined the flash from my phone inside,
but I knew what I would find. For a moment, I paused,
how could I have missed it? Destiny Cortez's lover knew when and where the
shipment arrived. She was terrified, would never rob a drug gang again.
But she knew somebody who was just this side of fearless and mentioned it.
Somebody expert with a gun, somebody with a devil inside her, somebody who
would go against the cartel the way some climber's free solo three thousand foot vertical
rock faces. Lisa had access to Muldoon, who regarded her like a daughter.
She knew she could sell the blow for over two million, and that
it would be trafficked in Hell's Kitchen and on the upper west side. I
was about to shine the light inside when I heard a noise from above.
I turned off the light silently. I pushed the door almost shut, listened
slight sounds came from the rear door of the lock being picked picked quietly,
expertly by professionals. I pulled Molly, I held her in my right hand
and got on the floor. Was it the d ea? I wouldn't shoot
federal offices. If it was them, I would just surrender, but with
it. When all hope of saving Lisa from long years in the ice box
was at the cartel, I made my way back to the sofa, but
Lisa was gone. She had heard the noise too. I rolled behind Lisa's
sofa. These would not be cortez vacarios. These would be hitmen from Mexico,
professionals. I breathed, trying to calm myself. How many of them
would there be? Probably two? Again, silently, I snarled. My
nine was fully loaded. The back door opened. It was the slightest squeak,
but my hearing was so attuned I could hear an ant cough even now
and want them going after her. Even after she suckered me and played with
my life, I was still determined to save hers. My hands shook gunfights
with professional killers when nobody's idea of fun. I tried to breathe slowly.
I pointed my phone at the far wall. I switched on the light and
ducked behind the sofa. There they were, two of them, illuminated in
the glare. Instantly they cut loose redmeat. Village is a production of voyage
Media. The series is produced by nat Mondel, Robert Midas, and Dan
Bendimore. Directed, produced, and adopted by Dan Bettimore, based on Andrew
Bernstein's upcoming novel at the same name. When a link to the novel is
available, it will be listed in the show notes. Starring Catherine Bell as
Lisa, Malik Yoba as Reggie, and Ryan Heppy as Tony. Additional cast
credits are available and showed edited, sound design and mixed by Nick Missidi,
original music by Derlas Gonzalez. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us
a five star review and Apple Podcasts or anywhere you're listening and subscribe now for
future episodes.