Fear Her Wrath II: Crucible of Glass

Chapter 5

"You know, if we're both going to be early every time, we might as well just move the meeting up ten minutes."

Corrigan was sitting on the ledge at the corner of Harlan Street, just across from Isherwood Antiques—its display windows dark and its doors boarded up since the night I took down Icemane. This was where my life as a costumed vigilante began, and where I first met Sergeant Sarah Corrigan of the Marbrose City Police Department. Maybe it was a little obvious as a meeting place, but even people who suspected that Corrigan and I were working together had no idea where or when we'd first met. Besides, it was close to home for both of us: I lived just a few blocks away, and Corrigan worked out of the 13th Precinct, which was just down the road.

"Yeah, but then I'd just be here ten minutes before that," I said, pulling myself up from the fire escape. "How'd things go at the precinct?"

I could already tell from her face that it wasn't good news. Corrigan gave a weary sigh.

"Still nothing on whoever did this. And I can't say my superiors were very impressed with my report. They were already pissed at me for 'interfering' with Rosinski's earlier shipments, and now I'm getting even more dirty looks than usual. You're not supposed to try when you're a cop in Marbrose City—especially not if you're making your coworkers look bad while you're doing it."

She felt around in her jacket for a cigarette, then seemed to changed her mind.

"We're gonna need to take a break from working this closely together. They're getting suspicious. I've got some cases piling up in the SVU that need my full attention—at least that way they can't say I'm not doing my job."

I must have looked a little sullen even through the mask, because Corrigan gave the smallest of patronizing smiles.

"What's bugging you?"

I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. I was annoyed at her for wanting to put our partnership on effective hiatus, but I didn't want her to know that. We had something more important to get out of the way.

"It was somebody on your end that sold us out," I said at last.

"I know," said Corrigan, glancing up at the night sky. "Every cop in this city has a price. Somebody must have paid off one of the rookies. Even good cops sometimes can't resist."

"And you really don't know who it was?" I asked pointedly. She shook her head.

"I'd tell you if I did. I'm not covering for anyone."

"Fine," I said irritably. "So we need to figure out who did the paying off."

"Well, we can cross a few names off the list," said Corrigan. "It's not the Ambrosius family—at least, the Montagneses don't think it's them. Otherwise we'd already have bodies piling up in the Norbury morgue. This kind of stunt would start a war."

The Ambrosius family was the African-American mob that operated out of Norbury—one of the few independent criminal operations tolerated by the Montagnese family. Their revenue streams were mostly limited to narcotics, protection, and the numbers, and their tense peace with the Montagnese family was contingent on them keeping out the rest of the Fen—and out of the way of the Vaccari regime. Like the Montagneses, I had immediately crossed them off the list.

Nobody was that stupid.

"What about the Bancroft mafia?" I suggested.

"I doubt it. The Montagnese family is on good terms with the Apostolis and Vitaglianos. They're the main supplier of drugs and weapons to Bancroft, and the families there make a big profit on what they buy from the Montagneses. No reason to sour that arrangement with something like this."