“Agent Stafford,” I greeted cheerfully. “How long’s it been?”
His head did a slow tip sideways as he lowered his gun, straightened up, and holstered it.
Ian’s grin was downright evil. “You know you never do well when you cross the marshals’ office, Agent Stafford. Look what happened the last time.”
Two years ago we had taken a witness right out from under him because protocol was not the DEA’s best friend. We had a system we followed each and every time. And maybe other districts didn’t work like ours, but because we worked for Sam Kage, by the book was the way we did things.
“We want Marcello McKenna,” he announced, but there was not a lot of bite to his words. SWAT was already loading back up, and the uniformed CPD officers were walking back to the street. “Where the hell are you going?” he yelled at the retreating lawmen.
“Federal marshals, Corb,” one of Stafford’s team members said, gesturing at Ian. “The fuck are we gonna do?”
“Why do you want McKenna?” Ian asked, standing casually in the doorway like it hadn’t been a big deal moments ago. He casually passed me his ID.
“We have a CI that says that McKenna is a dealer for the Murphy crime family, and of course we’re looking for him to make a deal.”
“Marcello McKenna is involved with a witness of ours, and as such has been fully vetted,” Ian told him. I knew that was the truth because he’d been on the phone with whoever was riding the desk at the moment, and they confirmed everything we thought we knew. A stint as a runner for Tadgh Murphy when he was still a juvenile would not, and could not, be held against Marcello now. “He is not a drug dealer. Your intel is faulty.”
He stared holes through Ian. “Your own brother gave him up, Doyle.”
“Stepbrother,” Ian made clear, crossing his arms, in his battle stance. “And did it ever occur to you that Lorcan is probably working from bad information himself?”
“The hell you say.”
“Oh, c’mon, Stafford,” Ian said, patronizing and judgmental, “you know he’s not a dealer. This offense was his one and only, and then you come dangling a get-out-of-jail free card, and so he remembers some shit he heard or someone told him, and you guys mobilize like you’re taking down El Chapo without checking anybody out? The fuck are you doing over there?” He took a breath, glancing around at the rest of Stafford’s team. “Or maybe it’s just you, huh? Maybe the rest of these guys are okay. I have a friend who’s worked with the DEA out in San Francisco, and he says they’re pretty great.”
“I—”
“Maybe you’re the only fucktard over there at the moment.”
“Shut the fuck up, Doyle,” he roared, moving up so he was right in Ian’s face. “You don’t want to give us McKenna, fine. We’ll just grab him when he leaves here or tomorrow or the next day or—”
“No,” Ian insisted, moving so he and Stafford were basically nose to nose. “He’s in our system as attached to a high-profile witness. You try and do anything with him, I mean fuckin’ anything, and the system will kick him back out. And if you try and do anything to him off the record and I find out, your boss is talking to mine, and I’ll give you one guess how that turns out since my boss is the fuckin’ chief deputy,” Ian said with a smugness in his tone that had gotten him hit on a number of occasions. “Think about what happened the last time you went in there and demanded something from him.”
Stafford took a step back. “I have your brother, and he’s the one who’s gonna answer for all this shit.”
Ian would have said something back, and things would have escalated, I was sure, but the guy behind Stafford gave a quick shake of his head with his brows furrowed, and we knew right then that Stafford was talking out of his ass.
“You do what you think is right,” Ian told him with a shrug. “But a malicious prosecution charge is gonna look like ass in your jacket, I’m just sayin’.”
“Doyle—”
“Stay clear of our boys, and that includes McKenna, or I will personally fuck you up.”
“You don’t have the—”
“I’m the new deputy director of the Northern District of Illinois,” Ian advised him in that hard, biting, high-handed way he had when he was really pissed off. “And if you screw with anyone who has any connection to me—you’re fucked.”
It wasn’t a threat; Ian never made those. He was a promises kind of guy. But I knew Stafford could not slink off the porch either. It wasn’t in him.
“It’s not worth your time anyway,” I advised Stafford, which turned his attention to me. “This is all small shit, man. What’re you doing even running this down?”