Revenge is Best Served Cold

I removed the cap and dispensed with the niceties and took my first drink directly from the bottle. Not quite as sweet as Maker's Mark, with more of an earthy taste. I felt that familiar burn and warm afterglow. Then another. Then another until the image of my Lehka faded into a restless, dreamless sleep.

* * *

I spent the next several days combing the streets, shaking down my CI's and stopping by Maddy's desk a million times a day, hoping for any kind of lead. It seemed as if Shevchenko had vanished into thin air. It was one of the few times I felt utterly defeated. I went back to my desk to attend to a mountain of paperwork that was begging for my attention. I'd just brewed a fresh pot of coffee and was about to pour myself a cup when I felt my cell phone buzz in my back pocket.

I looked at the screen. It was Heather. The Mayor's chief of staff. The viper wrapped in a beautiful, seductive package. I was still pissed at her for planting her panties in my room to make Lehka think I was having an affair with her. She burned me once and I wasn't going to let it happen again. I punched the "answer" button with the intention of telling her off.

"What?" I said, showing my annoyance.

Her voice was frantic. "Max... Shevchenko's going to hurt Bobby. I don't know what to do."

Bobby was her younger brother. He was involved in a serious car accident when he was a child and was in 24 hour care ever since. I knew she was very attached to him.

My anger dissipated. "Take a deep breath Heather."

I could hear her hyperventilating and sobbing at the same time. I waited until she could catch her breath.

"He said he wanted $50,000... cash... otherwise he's going to do something terrible... Max... he said no police."

"Tell me exactly what he asked you to do."

"I wrote it down..."

She told me the address and the time for the drop, late that night. It was an abandoned warehouse in the West End.

"Max? What should I do?"

"You sit tight Heather."

She paused. I could tell she was extremely shaky.

"Should I get the money?"

"No Heather," I told her firmly. "I'll take care of this."

She knew me well enough to know I would.

"Max?"

"Yeah."

"I care for you."

"What the fuck?" I thought to myself. She was going to tell me that now?

"This isn't the time Heather."

There was a long pause, long enough that I thought our call had gotten cut off.

I heard her say ""OK" right before I hit the red button.

"I'll call you later. Don't worry. Bobby will be safe."

* * *

I went into Sheehan's office. She was on the phone talking to some bureaucrat. She looked up and could see the anxious expression on my face. She knew what that meant. It meant "right now."

"I need to take care of something. I'll call you right back," she told the person on the other end of the line. Her face was stern. Think strict schoolteacher who's tapping her hand with a ruler.

"What Max?"

I handed her a slip of paper with the address of Bobby's care facility.

"Get a black and white to the address now. I'll explain later."

I turned and started to leave.

"God damn it Max... you have to tell me what's going on," she said to my back.

"No time for that," I said over my shoulder. I had one foot out the door.

"Max! Wait!... that's an order!!" I heard her shout. I was already halfway down the hallway. Lanny spotted me and called to me from the break room.

I stopped in my tracks for a ten second conversation.

"Max... where are you going?" He was reaching for his hat. He thought he was going with me.

I didn't want Lanny to get dragged into this. I was sure IA would be ready to put my head on a pike after this.

"Best you not know."

He could read my face better than Sheehan. He immediately sat down and put his hat back on the table.

"You be careful Max."

"Careful's my middle name," I said with false bravado.

"No it's not," he insisted, calling my bluff. He knew me better than that.

"For once you're right partner." I walked over and patted him on the head.

"Come back alive, Max," he said, looking up at me.

"I intend to."

I left the station on a mission with one purpose, and that purpose was Olek Shevchenko.

* * *

By the time I left my room at the Royal Palms it was dark but not quite pitch black. There was only a sliver of a moon in a cloudless sky. It was cold outside. I could see my breath. I clutched the collar of my coat tight as I walked to my car, a light misting rain starting to fall. I had the address memorized and cruised slowly through the more marginal neighborhoods of Cincinnati. I grew up in a tough neighborhood around here, and the metal grates covering the doors and windows of the modest brick houses reminded me of my childhood on those mean streets.

A few more blocks. The neighborhood transitioned from residential to heavy commercial. Warehouses and light manufacturing dominated this area. I slowed to a crawl and turned off my headlights. There was no traffic to speak of. I reached the street that the warehouse was located on and turned left towards the warehouse. The street was lined with parked cars and the backs of empty tractor-trailers set on blocks. The was only the occasional light inside some of the offices, but other than that it was dead quiet.

I wanted to get the lay of the land. I looked at my phone -- an hour early. I found a parking space between an abandoned car and the back end of a tractor-trailer on the right hand side of the street. I figured he'd have to drive past me to get to the warehouse, which was at the end of a cul-de-sac. Desperate men make mistakes. Shevchenko made one here, allowing him only one escape route, which was the same way he came in.

I had parked so I was facing the warehouse. I checked my gun, taking off the safety. I took out my thermos from the glove box and poured myself a cup of coffee and kept one eye on the rear view mirror.

My mind drifted off. I was thinking about Lehka. How she was doing. Whether I'd see her again. Eshana told me that she didn't want me to call her. She'd call when she was ready. It had been almost a week and not a peep. As each day went by, I was more certain our relationship was over. I felt terrible for her. All she did was want to love me. And how did I repay her? By painting a target on her back for the sickest kind of revenge. That's Max. The walking disaster.

My mind flipped over to the here and now. I was about to face my nemesis. The taker of life, the exploiter of women, the evil motherfucker who snuffed my true love's will to live. Hate was threatening to consume me. I drew a deep breath and tried to control my anger and amp down the emotion. Shevchenko was about as clever a criminal as I'd encountered so I needed to have my wits about me. He succeeded in fooling Cap, Lehka and the rest of the force, leaving me to fight him on my own. He eluded our last carefully laid trap. He was not to be underestimated.

I saw headlights approaching in my rear view mirror. He was early. About five minutes early. I wasn't surprised. He probably also wanted to scope out the place and to see if he could spot any police. He also committed mistake number two, which was to get there first. I started the car as soon as I saw the headlights. His black SUV gleamed under the street lights. He was going slow, probably ten miles an hour. I tried to stay low in the driver's seat, but there was no way I could hide completely and still stay ready to drive. He probably knew I was there by the exhaust of my car. I saw his head turn toward me -- just for an instant. His shattered face registered surprise. He looked like a monster. He hit the accelerator and roared to the end of the street. Realizing he had only one way to get out he whipped the car around, squealing the tires, and went full throttle towards me. He intended to run and I intended to stop him.

I figured that would be his reaction. I turned my car quickly sideways and stopped in the middle of the street so with cars parked on both sides I had effectively blocked his escape. I could see his car was hurtling towards me. I flung my door wide open and threw myself onto the pavement, then rolled onto the grassy boulevard, laying facedown. I heard the sound of broken glass and the groan of metal as his SUV T-boned my defenseless car. The sound of the crash was followed by a hissing noise from a busted radiator and metal scraping against pavement.

I lifted myself up and dusted off my coat, now covered with bits of safety glass and debris. The twisted remainder of the front end of his car had collapsed and pushed my car twenty feet down the road before screeching to a stop. A fire in the crushed engine compartment lit up the night sky. His driver side door was open and Shevchenko was slumped over the steering wheel, gushing blood from his leg. I grabbed a clump of his oily black hair and lifted up his head. His ravaged face was awash in blood. He was barely conscious. His bloodshot eyes travelled to his leg, where he could see a jagged piece of metal protruding through torn pants. He watched as his lifeblood flowed onto the floor of the mangled car.

"Help me," he gurgled. Blood trickled out of his mouth.

I jerked his head up so I could look into his glassy eyes. I could have saved him. The good Max would have saved him. But this monster hurt my baby. He didn't deserve mercy from the good Max.

I stared into his eyes and saw his dark, wretched soul.

"Die motherfucker," I told him with as much venom as I could muster.

Revenge was best served cold. He was getting a Nicky sized portion from me.

Those were the last words he heard before he went to Hell.

I had a tight grip on his hair so I could watch his life force drain out as the pupils of his eyes become dilated and fixed. I let go of his hair and let his head thud against the steering wheel, his lifeless body draped over it, limp as a plucked chicken.

"At least you did that right," I told his bloody corpse.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Sheehan.

"Max... get back here now," she barked into the phone before I could say anything.

I told her where I was and that Shevchenko's body was with me. She was trying to talk over me the whole time.

"You're in a lot of hot water Max," she chided me after I was finished.

"I don't fucking care," I told her. I didn't.

I tossed my phone into the tall weeds and sat my ass on the curb, watching flames licking upwards into the misting rain and waiting for the reckoning that was sure to come.

* * *

Max will return if she isn't suspended or fired from the force.