Chapter 26 26
Quinn's POV
I got down from the cab and paid the driver. It was evening and a light rain was falling, so I pulled my umbrella out of my bag, shook it open and held it up high to shield myself.
Staring around furtively, I fished out my phone next, and checked the mysterious email I had received just the previous night. I read the address attached to it again and confirmed that I was in the right neighborhood. All I needed to do was find the street.
I glanced around again. There were only a handful of people around, and no one was paying attention to me. I walked down the road, nervous but determined. If who I expected to meet had what he claimed to have, it would be a massive boost to the mystery I had been trying to unravel for over a year.
I finally located the street. Looking around to make sure I was not being followed or watched, I walked into the almost deserted and darkened alleyway. It had a repulsive smell of unwashed bodies, cigarette smoke, rotting food and alcohol. My hand closed tightly around the handgun I had hidden carefully in my coat. I only hoped I wouldn't need to use it.
A group of men were sitting on the sidewalk, drinking and catcalling me.
"Hey beautiful," one of them leered as he shook a half-empty bottle at me. "You mind a drink?"
I ignored them and kept walking, trying to locate the house I was looking for. I finally found it: number twelve, Vernon Avenue. The house's front porch was so unremarkable that I almost walked past it. The paint on the door was peeling badly, and one of the two front windows had been patched up with cardboard and tape where the glass should have been.
I knocked three times, and a raspy male voice came from inside.
"Who's there?"
"It's me. Quinn Eisenhower."
The door opened a crack. A pair of bloodshot eyes peered at me, then the door swung open fully and an emaciated looking man emerged. He was younger than I had expected, maybe mid-twenties, but he had the hollow, sunken look of someone who hadn't been eating or sleeping properly in a long time. His clothes were rumpled and there was a nervous energy about him, the way his eyes kept moving even when the rest of him was still.
"Quinn." He smiled, exposing an entire row of teeth just as ugly as his face. "Nice to meet you in person. Come in, come in. Let me get you something to drink."
I stepped inside reluctantly. The interior of the house was dim, lit by a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a mattress on the floor in the corner with a grey blanket thrown over it, a small table with a broken leg propped up by a stack of old magazines, and takeout containers stacked beside the door, looking like they had been there for weeks. The whole place smelled like stale food and several cigarette packs. On the table, a laptop was open beside a half eaten bag of chips.
"Yeah, don't bother with the drink," I said firmly. "I'm here on business. You said you could get me the files I need, didn't you?"
"Ah, yes." Jonathan scratched the back of his head, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His eyes moved to the window, then back to me. "The ones on Dr Brad Bennett, right?"
"The very same," I replied. "I need everything. Official records, career records, clinical documentation, anything that connects him to the performance enhancing drug program. Anything that puts him at the scene."
Jonathan nodded slowly, but something in his face had gone dark. "Yeah, I can get that. I have a contact inside his office, someone who has seen the files firsthand." He paused to stare more closely at me. "But you have to know that this kind of thing doesn't come cheap. My guy is taking a serious risk even touching those documents."
"How much money do you need?"
He looked around again, that same darting glance toward the window, and I felt the small hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something was wrong. He had been nervous from the moment I walked in, but this was different. This was fear.
"Jonathan," I repeated quietly. "How much?"
"Chill, Quinn." He replied. Then his eyes locked onto something in the darkness beyond the window, and the color drained from his face completely.
"Holy shit...."
Before I could turn around, a hand wrapped around my neck from behind. I felt the cold blade of a knife pressing into my ribs.
"Don't move," a voice whispered in my ear. "You feel the blade?"
I nodded.
In a flash, two men had grabbed Jonathan. They dragged him out of the house and into the street, and one of them pulled a knife from his jacket and stabbed him four times in the stomach. He crumpled to the ground and didn't move again. All I could do was watch in horror.
"Now," the voice whispered in my ear. "You are going to walk slowly to the black car at the end of the street. If you try to run, I will stab you like your friend there."
He had an arm around my neck but my hands were still free, still gripping the handgun inside my coat.
The group of homeless men on the street corner suddenly burst into loud, hysterical laughter at something between them. The three men turned toward the sound for just a second, and that was all I needed.
I pulled the handgun from my coat and shot the man holding me in the foot. He fell to the ground, shrieking. A second man ran at me and I fired a bullet at his head, and he dropped. The third man screamed and disappeared into the darkness.
Then I ran out of the alleyway as fast as my legs would carry me, the homeless men still laughing somewhere behind me, my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my ears.