aFireFist
A Life in DC
Chapter 14 - Part 4
Third was a welfare check on an old man in a walk-up off Kane. Neighbor said he had not taken his trash down in four days. The man opened the door in a cardigan and invited them in like they were late for tea. The apartment was clean enough. The trash was bagged by the door. He had just not wanted to take it down in the rain. He talked for ten minutes about a bus route that did not exist anymore. Sawyer listened. Vieri listened. They took the bag down for him on the way out because it was sitting there and because the night was still allowing small things.
In the car after that, Sawyer watched the rain on the windshield.
"This is the city when nobody's performing," she said. "I forget what it looks like."
"Don't get used to it."
"I'm not." She glanced at the radio, then at him. "If something's going to break, it won't be a bike and it won't be an old man with a trash bag. It'll come in sideways."
He drove the grid. Kane to the Bowery pocket and back. Storefronts with gates already down. A church with a light in the basement. No catsuit on a fire escape. No green glow in an alley. No pigtails.
At 8:41 the radio gave them a transport confirmation on the morning's domestic and nothing else. Sawyer wrote it in the log.
"You want to run one more loop or call it?" she asked.
"One more. Captain said empty is the thing he's afraid of."
They ran the loop. A man pissing against a dumpster who zipped up when he saw the spotlight. A cab with a broken taillight they did not have the energy to write. Then the sector went still in that particular Gotham way that was not peace, just a pause.
Vieri pulled back into the precinct lot at 9:26. They signed the sheet. Sawyer bumped his shoulder with hers on the way up the steps, brief, work-close.
"Good day on paper," she said. "Don't stay in the house staring at the walls. That's how people start hearing things."
"Night, Sawyer."
"Night, Oronzo."
He drove home through the wet streets with the wipers on and the radio off. The Heights house was dark when he pulled into the short driveway. He killed the engine and sat with both hands on the wheel listening to the rain hit the roof. Then he got out, locked the car, and went inside.
Deadbolt. Keys on the table. The familiar smell of the place after a long shift. He dropped the bag, rolled his shoulders, and went to the kitchen for a beer he was not sure he wanted.
He thought that was the end of the day.
It was not.
Across the city the Clock Tower was warm and dry and smelled like hot electronics and old coffee. Rain tracked down the outside glass in thin lines. Traffic cams along the river showed the garment warehouses in grainy gray, loading docks slick, three white vans parked where they should not have been parked at that hour.
Barbara Gordon sat at the main console with her red hair pulled back and a dark tactical top stretched across her full breasts. One screen still held the frozen waveform from the Kane Street raid. Another held the dock timestamps from last night, rain-streaked and ugly. A third was live.
"Two on the loading dock," she said into the comm. "One in the office. Plates on the vans are fake-clean — they exist, they just don't belong to anyone who pays taxes. Penguin-adjacent muscle. Payroll and copper, same night, because they're greedy and not bright. This does not become a headline. Cass, you have the dock. Steph, alley side. I want them tied and left for uniforms. No photos. No speeches."
On a wet rooftop Stephanie Brown crouched behind a vent stack. The purple-and-black Spoiler suit was soaked through and clung to her full D-cup tits, the thick curve of her ass, the solid lines of her thighs. Water ran down the suit in thin trails. She could hear her own breathing in the mask.
Cassandra Cain was already a shape against the next parapet, Orphan black on black, compact and still. Rain ran off her like it did not matter. She signed once, small, for the camera Barbara had on them.
Ready.
Stephanie signed back. Let's get this over with.
She told herself it was about the vans.
It was also about the warehouse from last night, still sitting behind her eyes: three women on their knees, marked, still looking up at him. The favorite line. Harley's voice going high. Ivy talking to the Green with a cock in her. Selina making him say it.
Barbara's voice cut in, dry.
"Steph. Your heart rate's up and you haven't jumped yet. Stay on the alley. Do not make this about the other file."
"Copy," Stephanie said.
She did not stay on the other file.
She jumped anyway.
The alley hit her boots first. Wet brick, a dumpster with the lid half off, the sour smell of old fabric and diesel from the vans on the other side of the wall. Stephanie landed in a crouch that sent water up her calves. The Spoiler suit clung to her full D-cup tits and the thick curve of her ass; every breath pulled the purple-and-black fabric tighter across her chest. She stayed low and moved.
Barbara in her ear, calm, clipped.
"Van one and two are dark. Van three has the engine ticking. Two men on the dock — crowbar and a bolt cutter. Office light is on. Cass is already inside the loading bay. You have the runner if he comes your way."
"Copy."
Stephanie eased to the corner and looked. The dock was a slab of wet concrete under a broken bulb. Two men in work jackets, one with a crowbar hooked over his shoulder like he thought it made him look like a foreman. The office window showed a third shape bent over a desk, stuffing envelopes into a bag.
Cass moved through the bay like the dark had agreed to get out of her way. No sound. The man with the bolt cutter turned to say something to the crowbar and never finished it. Cass took his wrist, turned his weight, and put him on the concrete with his face against the wet. The second man only had time to lift the crowbar. Cass stepped inside the swing, hit him twice — ribs, then the back of the knee — and he went down on top of his friend. Zip ties. Fast. Clean.
"Dock is down," Barbara said. "Steph, office man is moving. He's coming out the side."
He came out fast and stupid, bag in one hand, crowbar in the other that he must have grabbed off a hook. He saw the purple-and-black in the alley and swung like he was chopping wood.
Stephanie did not give him the pretty version.
She stepped in, took the swing on her forearm, and drove a knee into his gut. Air went out of him in a wet grunt. The bag dropped. Envelopes fanned across the puddle. She hit him with the baton across the thigh to kill the next swing, then again at the wrist. The crowbar rang on the brick. He cursed her, called her a bitch, tried to grab the front of the suit. His hand closed on the wet fabric over her full tits for half a second before she broke the grip and put him on the ground face-first. Boot between his shoulder blades. Zip tie. Another. He kept cursing into the puddle.
Her breathing was too loud in the mask. Not just the fight. The fight was ugly and over. The rest of it was last night still sitting in her chest — the warehouse, the three of them on their knees, the way Catwoman had made him say it.
She hauled the man up to sitting against the wall and checked the bag with her boot. Payroll envelopes. A coil of copper wire. A phone with a cracked screen.
Barbara: "Uniforms are four minutes out. Leave them tied on the dock. No poses. Cass, plates and the phone."
Cass was already there. She signed at Stephanie under the broken bulb.
Clean.
Stephanie pulled her mask down to her chin for one breath of wet air. Rain hit her mouth. "Yeah. Clean."
They dragged the office man back to the dock and sat him with the other two. Cass went through pockets. Cheap wallets. A folded betting slip. The cracked phone. She held it so Barbara's tap could pull the last messages.
Barbara was quiet for a second while the data came up.
"Last thread's interesting," she said. "Not Penguin. Not directly. Someone told them to stay off the main streets. Quote: geometry lady pays extra if the job stays off the cameras. That's the phrase. Then a time and this address."
Stephanie looked at the three men on the concrete. The one she had put down spat blood and rain.
"Say it again," she told him. "Who paid extra."
He laughed once, short and mean. "You heard her. Woman with the drawings. Circles and shit. Paid in cash. Said keep it small and don't make the news. That's all I got."
Cass signed.
He is telling the truth. He is also stupid.
Stephanie zip-tied the last loose wrist and stood. Water ran down between her tits and into the suit. Her thick thighs were tight from the landing and the knee. "That's Zodiac. Has to be."
"It's a phrase on a phone," Barbara said. "It's not a confession and it's not a location. Mark it. Do not chase it tonight. You two get off that dock before the first siren. I want you on the roof of the packing house in ninety seconds."
They went up the fire escape. Cass first, silent. Stephanie after, boots slipping once on a wet rung, the suit dragging against her ass as she climbed. Sirens started in the distance, the slow whoop of a unit that thought it was arriving to a break-in, not three men already tied.
The packing-house roof was gravel and old tar paper and puddles that reflected the river lights. They crouched behind a rusted vent. Below, two GCPD cars rolled up on the dock. Flashlights. Radio. Nobody looked up.
Stephanie pulled the mask off all the way and pushed wet blonde hair off her face. Rain beaded on her cheeks and ran down her throat into the open collar of the suit. Her full D-cup tits rose and fell hard under the purple-and-black.
Cass signed, hands close so the motion stayed small.
Clean. The other file is still open. Him.
Stephanie wiped rain off her mouth with the back of her glove. "We have the audio. We have the dock from last night. We have Montoya on a body-cam she doesn't even know we pulled. Watching him from farther away is not intel anymore, Cass. It's stalling."
Cass waited.
"If Zodiac is paying street crews to stay off the main streets, the two-week quiet is already a joke," Stephanie said. She kept her voice down. She did not need to raise it. "The Queens are sitting on their hands because he asked them to. Meanwhile the geometry woman is buying jobs in the same neighborhood. We're on a roof talking about whether we're allowed to knock on a cop's door."
Barbara came in on both their comms.
"I can hear you. Both of you. Not tonight. No one goes near him alone. You regroup here. We compare the phone dump, the residual from the pier, and what you just heard. Then we decide how close. Clear?"
Cass signed toward the camera on her collar.
Clear.
Stephanie looked at the river. The vans were still down there. The uniforms were cutting the zip ties and putting on their own. A night that would look good on a blotter.
"Copy," she said.
She did not go back to the Tower.
For the Full 14248 word Version Please check my p.a.t.r.e.o.n: pat.....reon.c.o.m/cw/aFireFist just remove the multiple periods in this link. Thank you for the Support!