The lack of oxygen clouded her ability to think but muscle memory took over in response. Ella wrapped her legs around Steen’s mid-section, aiming for either side of the ribs. She squeezed with fury, rolled back on herself and flipped Steen head-first into the crates. She scrambled to her feet, lunged for her weapon.
Got it.
“Don’t you dare move,” she shouted, training her pistol at Steen’s legs. He lay against the crates clutching his forehead. When his arms fell free, Ella saw the massive gash. “Looks painful. But not as painful as having your throat slit, I bet.”
“What?” Steen shouted. “The fuck do you want with me, anyway?”
“I want you to empty your pockets. Show me you’re unarmed.”
“Bitch you’ve got a gun. If I had a gun, I’d have used it by now.”
“Do it.”
Steen reached into his jeans and showed his pockets were empty.
“Jacket too.”
Steen slowly removed it and slid it across the floor to Ella. “There. Check yourself.”
“Alright. Move an inch and I’ll make that gash much worse.” She bent down without taking her eyes off the suspect, reached into both jacket pockets, and found nothing. She rummaged around the inside and found another.
Her fingertips connected with something.
“What’s this, huh,” she said. She pinched it between her fingers and extracted it, and when she saw it, her trained target faltered just a little. “Oh my God,” she said.
It was two foreign coins wrapped in plastic.
Steen had a lot of explaining to do.
Ella inspected them a little more closely, and as she averted her eyes off the fallen suspect, she saw a blur in her peripheral vision. Footsteps thundered across the floorboards. Ella dropped the coins and re-aimed her pistol at the fleeing suspect but couldn’t get a lock-on. To her sheer astonishment, Steen was heading in the opposite direction to the exit. The bizarre direction choice confused her, until Steen seemingly flew towards the ceiling and out the open window. His full weight crashed down the roof outside, sounding like the god of thunder had come to a side street in Newark. She heard the thuds cascade down the roof then suddenly stop.
Ella followed his trail, climbing halfway out of the window to see Kevin Steen standing in place at his garden gate.
Standing opposite him was Agent Byford, gun in hand.
Ella made her way down in haste, bringing the coins down with her.
At last, the game was over.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
After taking an hour to process everything, Ella went down to the holding cells at the NDPD precinct. Inside, notorious thief Kevin Steen awaited his official arrest. Byford accompanied her down there for their first interview with the suspect.
A uniformed officer unlocked the massive steel door leading into the holding cells. The area was not a pretty affair, not too dissimilar to the jail cells in Ella’s strange Victorian dream. A powdery light sifted through the windows. Overhead was a vaulted ceiling, at least thirty feet high, and on it, Ella saw three layers of paint, each a dismal attempt at cheerfulness. The remains of a pair of rusted chains, bolted to the wall, lay on the ground like dead snakes.
“Hello, Kevin,” Ella said to the prisoner. He sat on a bench with a bucket of water beside him, gradually applying splashes to his head wound. “Now are you ready to talk?”
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
The guard brought two chairs over for the agents. They took a seat outside Steen’s cell.
“So, you’re a thief. Is that right?”
“I’m whatever pays me.”
“Sure. Now, we talked with your parole officer today. Want to tell us why you didn’t report to your last check-in?”
Steen shrugged then laughed. “I’ve been busy. I guess I forgot.”
“What could possibly be more important than not going back to prison?” asked Byford.
“Look, I’ve been a free man for a month. Man’s got things to do, alright? Tell the bitch I’ll call her when I’ve got five minutes.”
“You certainly do have things to do. I’m guessing you’ve got some old friends to catch up with, right?”
“Something like that,” Steen grunted.
“Old friends like Alan Yates, or Jimmy Loveridge.”
Steen soared to his feet and gripped the bars of his cell. “I know where this is going, and I didn’t touch those bastards. Yeah, I know those guys, but I didn’t cut them up.”
“Are you sure about that?” Byford asked.
“Positive, buddy.”
“How do you know them?” asked Ella.
Steen cracked a smile, showing two rows of alarmingly white teeth. Ella remembered reading it was quite common in newly released prisoners because brushing teeth took away hunger pangs.
“I’m a burglar, okay? I’ve been burgling since I was at my mother’s teat, and I’m still going even when I’m at your mother’s teat. If you want to stay in this game, you gotta put some beats in between you and your hot property.”
Ella pulled a look of perplexity. “Kevin, you’re 57. Stop speaking like a rapper and tell us in plain English.”
Steen retreated to the back of his cage. “When you lift something, you always sell it to a vendor. You don’t go round selling to the public like some clueless dipshit. Vendors will then sell it to other vendors. These are the beats, so it never comes back you, comprende?”
“We didn’t ask for a lesson in stealing. We asked how you know Alan and Jimmy,” Byford said.
“I sold them things I’d lifted. Watches, necklaces, old ass shit for Jimmy’s stupid shop. They loved it.”
“Did they know it was all,” Ella paused, “hot property?”
“Jimmy did. He didn’t care. Alan not so much. He thought I imported it.”
“Kevin, Alan Yates was a banker and philanthropist. Why would he need you?”
“He didn’t need me, but men like that are fuckin” addicted. They love seeing the numbers go up. He used to sell my stuff for himself directly. All those hospital wings and park benches – that’s my doing.”
Ella wasn’t sure how much of this was true, but she felt a little dirty if that was the case. Hopefully the truth about Alan Yates’s antics wouldn’t surface after his death, she thought.
“Okay, and now those two men are dead. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” asked Byford.
“Yeah, so?” said Steen. “Why would I kill two people who gave me easy cash?”
A reasonable question thought Ella, but she was convinced there was an answer hiding somewhere.
“Maybe they wronged you. Maybe they didn’t petition for your release from jail. Perhaps you’re ready to turn over a new life and you wanted to wipe out your past connections?”
Steen splashed his head again, this time soaking his skull in the process. “Ha. You’re out of your head, lady. I loved those two guys. I oughta be buying them gold tombstones with the money they made me.”
“Money that you don’t have anymore,” said Ella.
“Yeah, that’s a kick in the nuts, but what am I gonna do? Cry about it? No, I’m out there hustling again.”