No Cops!

Chapter 27

She said, through the catch in her voice, "She breaks my heart."

Jake looked at her solemnly. "There are many such kids here, with stories of unbelievable abuse-"

"Please-" she cut him off with a hand on his wrist. "Please, tell me why we are here."

She couldn't bear this, it was too much. Her heart felt sore. She didn't want to think of the poor and unprivileged people, the homeless, almost-orphaned children. She couldn't. She was so overwrought, she would simply break.

Jake sighed. "This is what The Marauders are doing, Suze. They're peddling drugs which make their way to the poor and desperate people, like the parents of these children. The drugs push them to a life of crime and separate the children from their parents. I am looking for some help, to clean up the city of this drug menace. Is it too much to ask?"

Tears were streaming down Suzy's eyes. She tried to wipe them away as Jake pulled her towards him. She sniffled on his shirt, desperate to not cause a scene. Thankfully, the room was almost empty, the children having moved to another activity. He was asking her for the impossible, but maybe keeping quiet and doing nothing was impossible as well.

"I'm going to be honest with you. Bert, or your brother Rob, is crucial to help us put the king-pin Joe Busconi behind bars. The other man, Jackal, who died yesterday, he was crucial as well, but we already lost that lead. It will take us days, months even, to find Bert, if The Marauders don't find him themselves. If he surrenders to the police, he will have police protection and he will be let off leniently for helping the cops."

Suzy's shuddering had subsided, but she still didn't look up. "But, we don't have days, weeks or months to find Bert. Any lead you have to his whereabouts is essential for us. We would bring him in for questioning, but it's not him but Busconi we're after."

Suzy had stopped sobbing as she let this all in.

She sat up straighter and tucked her hair behind her ears, aware that she looked like a fright.

Jake's face was grim. She knew he could have brought her in for questioning. Maybe a long time back. But he hadn't and she owed him this.

She cleared her throat. "Rob would never get involved in drugs. We may have done a lot of stupid things when we were kids. But, we would never-" she sighed. "It was the drugs that took our father away from us, we wouldn't." She grasped Jake's sleeve, urging him to understand.

"Whatever my brother is involved in, it cannot be drugs. You don't know him like I do, Jake. Please, believe me!"

Jake covered her hand with his. "We just want to get him in for questioning. If he's not involved, and he does help the cops, you know he won't be punished. But the law needs to run its due course."

As Suzy sat mulling this, he pulled her up to her feet. "Come, I'll drop you home."

The bus ride back was silent and the subway was too noisy to initiate conversation.

Suzy was too lost in her thoughts to notice the clamor around her.

She had known that The Marauders were small-time thugs, but the drug peddling charge gob-smacked her. No matter how much trouble she and Rob got into as kids, they had always steered clear from drugs or any kind of drug-related activity. It was an unspoken pact between them, they knew firsthand about drug induced violence.

As the lights raced past the subway car, her mind flew into a tizzy.

Rob was close to the henchman, this Busconi guy that Jake mentioned.

Who was peddling drugs all over New York.

All the times Rob goofed up, she had shielded him, made excuses for his behavior.