Dap Deals With Death
Copyright© 2026 Drew Bourrut
Chapter 10: Interrogating the Hitman
The warehouse smelled like wet rot and industrial neglect, a combination that usually made Dap’s stomach turn. Tonight, however, the air tasted only of cold iron and the metallic tang of blood. The hitman was slumped against a rusted support beam, his breathing shallow and jagged. He was a man who had clearly spent his life dealing out misery, but tonight, the ledger of his own sins was being audited by a man with nothing left to lose.
Dap stood over him, the shadow of his fedora obscuring his eyes. He lit a cigarette, the match flare illuminating the sharp, tired angles of his face. He didn’t offer the man a light. He didn’t offer him a drink. He offered him a choice between a quick exit and a very long, very painful conversation.
“You’re a long way from the city lights, pal,” Dap said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. “And you’re a long way from home. The people who pay your tab don’t keep retirement funds for guys who get caught. You know that as well as I do.”
The hitman spat a glob of blood onto the concrete floor. He squinted up at Dap, his face a road-map of bad decisions and broken knuckles. “You think you’re clever, gumshoe? You’re just a fly buzzing around a hurricane. You pull my thread, and the whole tapestry unravels. You have no idea what you’re stepping into.”
Dap leaned in, the smoke from his cigarette curling around his head like a ghost. He pressed the toe of his boot firmly into the man’s injured shoulder. The hitman let out a stifled groan, his face turning a sickly shade of gray.
“I’m not interested in the tapestry,” Dap said, his tone devoid of sympathy. “I’m interested in the mother. Maya’s mother. The one you and your professional friends decided to tuck away in a basement somewhere. Start talking, or I start making sure you never use your hands to hold a trigger again.”
The hitman laughed, a wet, rattling sound. “She’s a ghost, Slade. They move people like her through the system every single day. She’s just another piece of cargo on a manifest that nobody is allowed to read. You want to find her? Look at the river. Look at the places where the water is too deep and the secrets are too heavy to float.”
Dap kept the pressure on. He watched the man’s eyes, looking for the flicker of genuine fear that usually surfaced when the bluffing stopped. “The river is a big place. Give me something I can use. Give me a location, or I leave you here for the rats to finish the job.”
The hitman shifted, his brow slick with sweat. He looked around the cavernous, empty warehouse, the echoes of their voices dying in the dark corners. “There is a facility. Not a warehouse, not a depot. It sits near the Hudson. North of the city, where the docks are quiet and the law is just a suggestion. It’s a holding ground. A place for people who saw things they shouldn’t have seen, waiting for the final boat ride.”
Dap narrowed his eyes. “A holding ground. That’s a fancy term for a prison. Who runs it?”
“The same people who sign the checks for your commissioner,” the hitman hissed. “The ones who don’t have names. They have buildings, they have ships, and they have men like me who do the heavy lifting. You go there, you’re not just looking for a woman. You’re walking into the belly of the beast. They won’t just kill you, Slade. They’ll erase you.”
Dap pulled a small notebook from his coat pocket and scribbled down the details. He didn’t trust the man, but the specificity of the information had the ring of truth. In a city where everything was bought and sold, the only thing more expensive than silence was the truth, and this man was clearly looking to pay his way out of the dark.
“Why tell me?” Dap asked, pausing with his pencil poised over the paper. “You’re a professional. You could have taken this to your grave.”
The hitman looked up, his gaze unfocused and weary. “Because even a dog knows when the master is going to kick it. I’ve seen what they do to the ones who outlive their usefulness. You’re the first person to actually push back in a long time. Maybe you’re the one who breaks the cycle, or maybe you’re just another corpse in the making. Either way, it’s better than waiting for their bullet.”
Dap stood up, tucking the notebook away. The warehouse felt suddenly smaller, the walls closing in with the weight of the conspiracy. He looked at the hitman one last time, a detached, cynical observation of a man who had gambled his life on the wrong side of the law.
“If you’re lying, I’ll find you,” Dap said, his voice cold enough to freeze the humid air. “And if you’re telling the truth, you’d better hope the cops get to you before I do.”
He walked toward the exit, the heavy metal door groaning as he pushed it open. Outside, the night air was biting, a sharp contrast to the suffocating heat of the warehouse. The city loomed in the distance, a sprawling, neon-lit labyrinth of greed and desperation. He knew the facility by the river was only the beginning. The deeper he dug, the more he realized that the disappearance of Maya’s mother was not an isolated incident, but a single thread in a web that tied the highest offices in the city to the lowest docks in the Bronx.
He climbed into the Ford V8, the engine turning over with a reluctant cough before settling into a steady, low growl. Maya and Dana were waiting for answers, and for the first time in a long career of chasing shadows, Dap felt the weight of the truth pressing against his chest. It wasn’t just a case anymore. It was a war, and he was the only soldier left on the front line.
As he pulled away from the warehouse, he glanced in the rearview mirror. The derelict structure stood silent and imposing, a monument to the secrets he was determined to expose. He thought about the high-tech components, the ledger full of impossible coordinates, and the image of the Commissioner, a man sworn to protect the city, now revealed as the architect of its decay.
The hitman had been right about one thing. The river was deep, and the secrets were heavy. But as the car sped down the dark, rain-slicked streets, Dap knew that some secrets were meant to be dragged into the light, regardless of the cost. He pressed the accelerator, the tires humming against the asphalt. The Hudson River was waiting, and for the first time, he felt like he was finally moving in the right direction.
The city was a predator, always hungry and never satisfied. It fed on the innocent and thrived on the silence of the corrupt. But tonight, the predator had finally found something it couldn’t chew. Dap drove on, the headlights cutting through the gloom, heading toward the river and the truth that lay waiting in the shadows of the waterfront. He didn’t know if he would come back, but he knew one thing for certain. When the sun rose over the Hudson, the city would never look the same again.
The road ahead was winding and treacherous, much like the path he had chosen. He thought about Maya, the young woman whose life had been upended by the callous indifference of a machine that viewed human beings as inventory. He thought about the moral ambiguity that defined the streets he walked, the thin line between a hero and a relic, and the relentless pursuit that had become his only reason for existing.
The rain began to fall in earnest, a steady, rhythmic tapping on the roof of the Ford. It was a cleansing sound, though he knew better than to believe that any amount of water could wash away the filth of New York City. He was just a man with a badge he no longer wore and a conscience he couldn’t quite silence. That was enough. It had to be.
He passed a sign for the river access road, the metal reflecting his headlights with a dull, clinical gleam. The facility was just ahead, a ghost of a building tucked between the skeletal remains of old docks and the dark, churning water of the Hudson. It was a place where people went to vanish, where the law stopped and the syndicate began.
Dap killed the headlights as he neared the entrance, the darkness wrapping around the car like a shroud. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out his service revolver, checking the cylinder with a practiced, fluid motion. Six rounds. One for every lie he had been told, and one to spare for the truth.
He stepped out of the car, the wind whipping his coat against his legs. The silence here was different. It was the silence of a grave, heavy and absolute. He moved toward the facility, his boots crunching on the gravel, each step a deliberate move in a game he was no longer playing by the rules. The hitman had given him the location, but the real test was yet to come.
He reached the edge of the building, a massive, windowless block of concrete that looked more like a tomb than a holding ground. There were no lights, no signs of activity, only the distant, rhythmic slap of the water against the rotting pilings of the pier. He pressed his back against the wall, listening.
Inside, there was only the sound of his own breathing and the distant, muffled hum of machinery. It was a sound he had heard before, the same industrial whine he had encountered in the warehouse in the Bronx. This was the pulse of the conspiracy, the heartbeat of the operation that had turned a simple diner shift into a nightmare.
He moved toward a side door, his hand resting on the cold, rusted handle. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t look back. He had come too far to turn away now. As he turned the latch and pushed the door open, the smell of ozone and wet earth rushed out to meet him. The facility was waiting, and he was ready to deliver the final audit.
The darkness inside was absolute, but he didn’t need light to see the shape of the danger. He could feel it in the air, a tension that vibrated through the floorboards and chilled his skin. He stepped into the unknown, his revolver held low, his eyes scanning the gloom for the first sign of the enemy.
The hunt was over, and the confrontation was about to begin. He knew the risks. He knew the odds. But as he stepped deeper into the belly of the facility, he felt a strange sense of clarity. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t just chasing the truth. He was forcing the city to look at it, whether it wanted to or not.
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