Page 119 of Savage Lover

“You know I could shoot you right now,” Schultz says, scowling. “Or just arrest you for breaking and entering.”

“That wouldn’t be very hospitable. Considering I’ve brought you a gift.”

Schultz has his hand curled around the stock of his gun. He pauses, then stuffs the pistol into his waistband instead. He crosses his arms over his chest, fixing me with a bleary stare.

“What is it?” he says.

“Well . . . maybe gift is an exaggeration. More like, an item in trade.”

“Trade for what?”

“Camille Rivera.”

Schultz gives an irritated snort.

“You gonna try to pretend you give a shit about her?” he says.

“Oh, I give a lot more than that,” I say, quietly. “Camille is mine now. You’re not going to come near her again.”

“Or what?” Schultz sneers.

“Or the next time I break in here, you’ll wake up to a blade severing your vocal cords.”

He doesn’t like that. I see his right hand drifting down toward his gun again.

I don’t give a fuck. I’m deadly serious. This is Schultz’s one and only chance to leave Camille alone. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her. I’d take down the whole Chicago PD if I had to. I’d murder every man in this city, one by one.

Deliberately and slowly, so he can’t misunderstand, I tell him, “You don’t look at her. You don’t talk to her. You don’t come within a hundred feet of her. She’s done being your CI.”

“Oh yeah?” Schultz scoffs. “Then you better have brought me something pretty fucking fancy. Like maybe whatever you pulled out of Raymond Page’s vault. Oh yeah, I know that was you. Page knows it, too. He saw you on camera, taking your little field trip down to his vault with his daughter.”

“Let me worry about Raymond Page,” I say.

I hold up the present I’ve brought for Officer Schultz. It’s a VHS tape with a handwritten label. He stares at it blankly, like he forgot about that piece of technological history.

“What the fuck is that?” he says.

“It’s the tape from the security cameras on Jeffrey Boulevard. Taken the night of April 18th.”

Schultz goes pale beneath the ruddy hue of his tan. It makes him look almost yellow in color. All intoxication fades from his eyes, and they burn brighter than ever.

“That’s impossible,” he says.

“Not impossible,” I say. “Just difficult to get.”

Schultz looks at my hand, holding the tape. He sees my knuckles, swollen to almost twice their normal size, scabbed over and bruised.

He licks his lips convulsively.

“Give it to me,” he says.

“I will,” I tell him. “But first your promise. You leave Camille alone.”

“Yes,” he snaps.

“Permanently.”

“YES!”

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