The Nemesis Origin

IV

‘It’s ten dollars a slice and you either pay up now or you clear out.’

Reginald Hood Dyson rubbed his hands together against the cold of the night as he watched the addict’s eyes flicker at the threat of his next fix being snatched away from him. Dyson’s voice was soft with distance, but the crisp night air carried the sound well enough that she could hear it from thirty yards away, delivered as it was with enough force to scare his next customer into parting with money before he had even tested the goods.

Nicola Lopez leaned against the corner of South Princeton and West 63rd, close by the elevated rail line as she watched the deal go down amid crumbling tenement blocks and boarded up houses long since abandoned. Englewood was a neighbourhood on the decline, blighted by crime and poverty. She had been following Dyson for two weeks, the former convict a dealer with connections to some of the major import cartels operating out of South America. Dyson had spent more nights in Cook County Jail than Lopez had spent eating hot meals, a career criminal with enough muscle and reputation behind him to control an entire block on the city’s south side.

Like most all dealers, Dyson operated an area that looked every bit the drug dealer’s paradise. From where Lopez stood she could see multiple fires burning beneath the overpass where homeless people sought refuge from the bitter cold. It would be easy for an onlooker to think that all of them were simply low-life’s living one day to the next in search of their fix, but times had changed. Many of the people huddled over the meagre flames had once lived in decent houses, commuted to decent jobs, raised decent children. Now in the turbulent wake of the economic crisis, all that they had left to their name were the clothes in which they stood and the memories to which they clung.

Lopez focused on Dyson and ignored the mumbling masses shuffling from one fire to the next. The dealer already had a package in his hand and was waving it demonstratively to his potential customers, a small group of whom had gathered around and appeared to be squabbling among themselves as to who would pay. It remained a marvel to Lopez that people in such dire straits had anything to pay for drugs with, but then again she knew that many of them fuelled their addiction with muggings, thefts and other criminal acts, the drug trade the source of some seventy per cent of all crime in American cities.

Dyson handed the package over to a wiry, greasy-haired man with painfully thin features and a wild glint in his eye. Dyson was passed back in return greenbacks dirtied with age and use, much like the people handling them. Dyson pocketed the cash and offered his customers a mock salute, his smile bright in the flickering glow of the firelight and glinting with a gold tooth that Lopez knew he had had fitted two years before upon his release from jail, a celebration for the dropping of convictions due to lack of evidence and the interventions of a lawyer whose motivations were at best obscure.

Dyson swaggered off through the miserable masses as he made his way towards the 4x4 in which he had travelled from the west-side, and the vehicle that Lopez had followed him in. She pushed off the wall and circled back around some of the towering concrete pillars that supported the overpass above, the hiss and rattle of traffic rolling in and out of the city on the nearby I-94 an uncaring symphony to the misery.

As she walked past her car she glimpsed her reflection in one of the windows, long dark hair and equally dark eyes against olive skin. Lopez was only a little over five feet tall, dressed in a tight-fitting leather jacket, jeans and boots and with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She walked out from behind the car toward the 4x4 and intercepted Dyson.

Dyson looked up as Lopez stepped into view and he slowed, one corner of his lips curling up in a gruesome smile as he came to a stop and shook his head. His dark eyes looked her up and down for a long moment before he finally spoke.

‘Nicola Lopez,’ he sneered. ‘I thought that you would have learned to give up the last time you tried to send me down. Lack of evidence, if I recall?’

‘Two years in Cook County being somebody’s bitch, if I recall,’ Lopez replied. ‘Fancy heading back there?’

Dyson’s grim smile vanished as his features hardened. ‘I’m not going back to county, and you got nothin’ on me. You looked around you, Lopez? This ain’t no safe place for a lady.’

Lopez glanced at the cold metal of the overpass above them, the debris and rubbish gusting on the breeze.

‘Perhaps you ought to leave then?’

Dyson burst out laughing and then in a flash a pistol appeared in his hand and he aimed directly at Lopez. ‘No witnesses, no evidence but what they’ll find left of you floating in Lake Michigan.’

Lopez raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and smiled as she tapped the breast of her jacket.

‘Pinhole camera,’ she said, ‘wirelessly transmitting to a recording device in my office. Smile asshole, you’re on camera threatening a bail officer with premeditated homicide.’

Dyson snarl collapsed into a panicked grimace as he hurriedly stuffed the pistol back beneath his jacket and his white eyes sought a route of escape.

‘You don’t got power of arrest!’ he insisted.

‘Not until you pulled the piece on me,’ Lopez agreed as with one hand she pulled a nightstick from inside her jacket. ‘Now I got all the power I need. On your knees, hands behind your head!’

Dyson snarled again as he raised his hands behind his head, and Lopez took a pace toward him as she reached down for a pair of manacles attached to her belt.

The blow came from behind her, something hard and heavy slamming between her shoulders and knocking the breath from her lungs. She crashed onto the cold ground as the nightstick flew from her hand. The weight of a man landed on top of her and before she could react somebody grabbed her wrists and yanked them into the small of her back. She heard a cackle of delight from just behind her right ear and a stench of foul breath as the man on top of her whispered.

‘Bet your camera didn’t see me. Been a while since I had myself on top of a pretty little missy like you.’

Lopez looked up and saw Dyson striding toward her as he pointed. ‘Get that camera off her and shut it down!’

The man on top of her rolled her over and pinned her arms beneath her. Lopez recognised the scrawny face of the man to whom Dyson had sold the drugs, his wild eyes and stained teeth like a row of uneven tombstones between thin lips. The man unzipped her jacket and reached in and Lopez saw his expression change from one of delight to one of lust as his hand moved over her breast and he gripped it tightly. His breathing accelerated and she saw him lick his lips as he looked down at her and then up at Dyson.

‘Man, we could take her.’

Dyson looked down at Lopez and a cruel grin spread across his features, the gold tooth glinting in the faint light.

‘The camera first,’ he insisted. ‘I know where her offices are ‘cause my lawyer had to deal with her bail bondsman crap when he got me out of jail. We’ll go pay a visit when we’ve finished with her and make sure there’s no record of this.’

The scrawny man, his hand still grasping Lopez’s breast, grinned in anticipation as he fumbled in search of the camera inside Lopez’s jacket. He hunted for several long seconds before he frowned in confusion.

‘There ain’t no camera here,’ he said. He pulled on something inside Lopez’s jacket and a microphone appeared in his hand.

Dyson’s gaze moved from Lopez toward her car, which was parked behind one of the massive concrete pillars. From where they were a camera mounted on the dashboard would have had a clear view of both Lopez and Dyson and, if the lens had a high enough resolution, also be able to film the transaction he had just conducted.

‘Clever girl,’ Dyson said as he looked down at Lopez. ‘That’s the thing about you bail collectors: you’re that little bit more cunning than the police. What say we turn that against you?’

Dyson reached down and pushed the scrawny man off Lopez as he drew his pistol again and held it to her chest, then with the other hand grabbed her collar and yanked her to her feet. Dyson shoved Lopez towards her car and jammed the pistol into the small of her back.

‘Keep walking.’

Lopez stumbled forward as Dyson pushed to her car, changing his grip so the pistol was shoved under the small of her neck. They reached the car and Dyson pushed hard again so that her knees cracked against the vehicle’s front fender. Dyson shoved his weight against Lopez and bent her over the hood of the vehicle, and with the pistol pressed to her neck he moved his head next to hers as one hand cupped her chin and lifted her head to look at the vehicle’s windscreen. There, on the dashboard, the camera lens stared unblinkingly out at them.

‘That camera is going to record everything that’s going to happen to you now,’ Dyson snarled. ‘And then I’m going to go retrieve all that lovely footage and keep it, maybe watch it every now and again when I want to remind myself what it’s like to take a chiquita like you from behind.’

Dyson pinned Lopez in place with his weight, the pistol still jammed against her neck as with his other hand he reached down and began trying to fumble with his jeans. She could hear the cackling of his accomplice and the sound of a belt being undone.

‘The camera feed is live,’ Lopez spat. ‘Local law enforcement will be here within minutes.’

‘Minutes is all I need, honey,’ Dyson replied with a grim chuckle. ‘That’s what jail does to you. You reap what you sow, Lopez.’

Dyson shifted position as he reached down in an attempt to unzip his fly, and as his weight shifted off of Lopez’s back she hooked one heel around Dyson’s ankle as with her free arm she pushed hard off the car’s hood and jerked her head backward.

The back of Lopez’s skull impacted Dyson’s nose with a crack as with her left-hand she grabbed the pistol and pushed it away from her neck. With a boot hooked around Dyson’s ankle the big man was instantly thrown off balance and Lopez immediately lifted one boot onto the bumper of the car and pushed hard as she threw Dyson off.

Lopez whirled away from the car in one smooth motion and her right fist cracked across the scrawny man’s sneering face even before he realized what had happened. A spray of grey and broken teeth flew from his mouth as his jaw flicked sideways and he collapsed onto the ground.

Dyson let out a roar of anger and jumped up, one hand holding his jeans up as the other aimed the pistol at Lopez. She spun on her heel and flicked one boot up in a graceful high kick that smashed into Dyson’s wrist before he could get a shot off, and then she lunged in for the pistol.

Lopez managed to get a grip on Dyson’s hand and she twisted savagely. Dyson let out a growl of pain as he twisted in sympathy, his body doubling over as he fought to get hold of Lopez’s face and twist her away. Lopez instantly bit down on Dyson’s hand and heard him scream as he tried to yank his fingers away from her bite. She pulled Dyson up as he twisted away and threw him over her shoulder as she twisted the pistol hard in his grip.

Dyson slammed down onto the unforgiving asphalt as the pistol was ripped from his hand. Lopez stood and aimed the weapon down at Dyson, who stared up at her with features stricken with pain.

‘Assault and attempted sexual assault,’ Lopez growled with grim satisfaction as she stood over the cowering man. ‘That should go down well on film alongside drug dealing and possession of an unlicensed weapon.’

Dyson said nothing but he looked to one side, somewhere behind Lopez, and she turned to see the scrawny man staggering to his feet and holding his bloody mouth, and behind him dozens of men all advancing toward her. Most were wrapped in multiple layers of clothing, their haggard faces bearded and their eyes hungry now for more than just food. Lopez’s shirt had been yanked from the waist of her jeans and her collar ripped to expose bare, olive skin above her right breast, her hair shaken loose into long black veils that framed her face.

More sounds from behind and she turned to see other homeless men advancing around her car and cutting off any escape.

‘Bail bondsman,’ she snapped as she reached down and pulled an identity badge from her belt and held it high above her head. ‘This is police business and there’s a camera in the car with a live feed to the local station.’

The advancing ranks of men did not stop shuffling toward her, their eyes devoid of anything approaching emotion that she could recognise. Desperate men, with nothing to lose in this life and everything to gain. She realized belatedly that three square meals a day in jail or prison was infinitely preferable to their suffering outside in the elements of a Chicago winter.

‘There ain’t no cops watching!’ Dyson yelled as he scrambled to his feet and backed away from Lopez. ‘You can have all of her!’

‘Back off, now!’ Lopez yelled as she aimed her pistol into the sky and fired a single shot.

The gunshot caused many in the crowd to flinch, but others were now looking at her in a way that she knew would mean nothing would stop them. She glanced over her shoulder at Lake Michigan, the only possible means of escape a leap into the frigid black water as she began backing away and aimed the pistol at the shuffling hordes gathering before her.

She saw Dyson and his scrawny friend scramble away through the ranks of men as they sought their escape. She had fourteen rounds left in the Glock pistol, and she counted at least thirty men closing in on her from all sides. The closest of them reached out for her pistol, his features alive with a volatile mix of excitement and desperation.

Lopez aimed her pistol at his head and made to squeeze the trigger.

A deafening gunshot crashed out and was followed by four more as a sudden blaze of sirens and vehicles pulled beneath the underpass, bright beams of headlights sweeping in and illuminating the shuffling vagrants.

The crowd whirled in surprise and scattered away from Lopez, running on unsteady legs back towards the salvation and anonymity of the fires in the shadows. Lopez lowered her pistol, suddenly aware of her heart pounding inside her chest as four black vehicles screeched to a halt in front of her. Lopez holstered her weapon as the door of one of the vehicles opened and a man stepped out.

He was tall, a black overcoat rippling in the cold wind, his bituminous skin dark. He walked with his hands in the pockets of the coat, apparently impervious to the chill, his features without emotion. He moved to within a couple of yards of her and watched her for a long moment before speaking in a voice so deep it sounded as though he were underwater.

‘Nicola Lopez?’

‘Who the hell are you?’

Lopez glanced at the vehicles and their distinctive plates and recognised them as government pool cars, something she had seen many times before in her career as a bail bondsman and occasional contractor for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

‘I’m your saviour,’ the man replied.

‘I had everything under control.’

‘Of course,’ the man said. ‘Just like Dyson and his accomplice?’

‘They got away.’

‘Only as far as the highway,’ the man replied. ‘My people will pick them up. I take it they are worth quite a bit of money to you. I’d be happy to hand them back over if you can spare me a moment of your time.’

Lopez surveyed the man for a moment longer.

‘What did you say your name was?’