Lucky Town

by Peter Vonder Haar

  We converse, but I can’t hear what’s being said. My frustration grows until I’m mercifully jerked awake as Emma pulls to a stop in the hospital parking lot. A glowing “EMERGENCY” sign greets me, and I rub my eyes in annoyance.

  “Did you have a nice nap?” she asked as she turned off the ignition.

  “I dreamed about Mike,” I said.

  “Really?” she asked with seemingly genuine interest. “Any insights?”

  "Apparently I'm still in love with Beyoncé."

  "This is news?"

  We exited the Lexus and walked through the sliding glass doors into the Waterway Hospital lobby while I thought about my unintelligible dream conversation with my brother.

  “I don’t know what's going on," I said. "It's possible I'm losing my mind. Also, I think I need to talk to Charlie."

  “That’s not happening.” Don was waiting for us in the lobby and being his usual pleasant self.

  “Don,” I said, “How's she doing?"

  He embraced me in the bro hug style of our time and said, "Sleeping. Looks like you could use some yourself."

  "I was telling him the same thing, " Emma said.

  Don smiled widely at her. "Emma!" She got the full bear hug, which is terrifying to watch if you don't know him and understand he's not actually trying to snap your spine.

  Releasing her, Don said, "Y'all missed all the fun."

  "Oh?"

  He smiled. "It took Charlie and me both to convince Mom to stay with Kayla instead of coming here."

  "How did you manage that?" I asked.

  "We ... may have downplayed the extent of her injuries. If Mom calls you, Charlie's just having some routine tests."

  We walked to the elevator bank and Don hit the button for Charlie's floor.

  I said, "I think there’s something we overlooked about Mike’s disappearance, and I need Charlie to help me check it out.”

  “I appreciate that, but even if I was inclined to let you annoy her with this, the dose of temazepam they gave her will keep her knocked out for another six hours, at least.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  Emma said, “Is there something I can do?”

  Don raised an eyebrow and I ignored him. He’d clearly been surprised by Emma’s appearance and, after he’d given her a hug, couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off his face.

  I shook my head. “Not unless you can get the DHS report on the raid where Ramirez was killed.”

  When she didn’t immediately say no, I looked in her direction. “Em?”

  “I’m technically your lawyer now,” she said. “I could request it as evidence pertinent to your case, but that won’t work if it’s classified.”

  “That’d be great if you’d check,” I said, hoping my gratitude wasn’t that obvious.

  We exited the elevator and started down the hallway to Charlie's room.

  “What’s the point?” Don asked.

  “I need to see if the report’s been updated to say what kind of gun was used.”

  “What difference could that make? They’ve already said it was Mike’s service weapon,” Don said.

  “They’re not going to release this to the public,” I said. “At least, not before someone has a chance to alter it. If we can see it before that …” I trailed off.

  “Where’s the guard?”

  Don and I both looked around. The chair was across from Charlie’s door, but the deputy who’d been sitting in it was gone.

  “He was there when Emma called to say you were on your way,” Don said, “So … twenty minutes ago?”

  “Maybe he went to the bathroom,” Emma said.

  Before I could comment on whether that was possible or not, movement at the end of the hallway caught my eye. Fluorescent lights glinted off gunmetal and I barely had time to yell, “Down!” before shots rang out. I hit the floor, pulling Emma down with me as bullets thudded into the wall where we’d just been standing.

  Chapter THIRTY-FOUR

  Don already had Charlie’s 9mm out and was returning fire as he rolled to find some cover against the wall. His shots drove the gunman back behind the corner, and I grabbed Emma’s arm and pulled her up with me.

  “Come on!” I yelled, but she was up almost as fast as me and we ran for Charlie’s room.

  I held the door open, unsure if it would stop our assailant’s rounds. Still, any cover was better than none, and I said, “Don! Get your ass in here!”

  He was in a crouch, his off leg pointed straight in front of him to minimize his silhouette. He glanced at me, squeezed off two more shots, then sprinted across the hallway. Bullets cracked in his wake, but he lunged through the doorway unscathed.

  Charlie was still asleep. Gotta give it up for temazepam.

  “Sitrep?” Don said. He fished Charlie’s extra magazines out of her backpack, then moved to cover the door, which had a small window about three-quarters of the way up. Thankfully, this room wasn’t one of those maternity ward types with walls made of glass.

  “Single shooter, automatic rifle,” I said. To Emma, “Did you see anyone else?”

  She shook her head. She was perhaps a little shaken, but no worse for wear. “I didn’t, but it doesn’t mean he’s the only one.”

  I went to draw my own weapon, then remembered it was still in a DHS evidence locker. “Shit!”

  “What?” she asked.

  I nodded to my brother. “That’s the only weapon we have.”

  “No, it isn’t.” She reached into her purse, a black Chanel job, and withdrew a pistol.

  I stared. “Are you shitting me?”

  “What?”

  “How many arguments did we have about me bringing my gun on dates?” I said.

  She shrugged. “There were some … nonspecific threats made against my firm several months ago. The partners paid for concealed carry permits for any associates who wanted to get one.”

  I laughed. “This must be the End Times.”

  She grimaced. "And this isn't a date."

  “Enough with the foreplay,” Don hissed. “I think he’s moving.”

  Emma looked like she was about to join him at the door, then sighed and handed the gun to me. It was an H&K .380. Nice.

  “I mean, I am the better shot,” I offered.

  “And I’m in heels, asshole.”

  She went to Charlie’s bed and picked up the phone to the nurse’s station. “Nothing.”

  I nodded, taking position next to the door. “If they’re not dead, they’re taking patients to cover under the active shooter protocol. This whole building will be locked down until SWAT shows up.”

  “Meaning we’re on our own,” Don growled.

  “Yup.”

  He muttered something that Mom certainly wouldn’t have approved of and put his hand on the doorknob.

  “What’s your plan?” I said.

  “Shoot this prick,” he said, “find out if there are any other pricks with him, and shoot them too.”

  I nodded. “I like it.”

  He pulled the door open and fired without looking. We heard someone who was a lot closer than they needed to be scrambling for cover, and I looked through the doorway to see a figure in a familiar jeans and hoodie combo moving into a crouch behind an abandoned gurney.

  Fuck it, I thought, and stepped into the gap, taking aim as I did.

  He saw me a fraction of a second too late, and I shot him twice as he raised his weapon. The first shot hit him in the shoulder, rotating his torso to his left, and the second bullet entered his right side. He toppled noisily to the floor and lay still.

  Don peered around the door and gave me an expression I read as a grudging “not bad.”

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I think that was too easy.”

  He said, “I agree.” Dropping to one knee, he risked a look down the hallway in the opposite direction. He ducked back with a curse as more gunfire followed from that direction.

  “They were trying to pincer m
ove us,” he said.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Two on that end. You sure the guy you capped was the only one coming from the north end?”

  “I wouldn’t swear on a Bible,” I said, “but I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “You wouldn’t swear on a Bible because you’re an atheist,” Emma chimed in.

  “Does this count as a foxhole?” I replied.

  Don ignored us. “We can’t make the north exit; we’d be exposed for too long to both shooters before we got there.”

  I agreed. “And my trick isn’t going to work again. The rear guy can just plink away at whoever sticks his head out.”

  Don looked around. “I’d give anything for a sniper right now.”

  Something clicked in my head, but I couldn’t coalesce it into anything before Emma said, “Do these windows open?”

  “Why?” Don asked.

  “You already said the hallway’s a shooting gallery,” she said. “You need to flank them.”

  I hated when she was right.

  “She’s right,” I said, and went to the windows. Don dragged the mutant bed-chair over and jammed it up against the door.

  Unsurprisingly, the windows wouldn’t open. Guess they didn’t want anyone jumping after they got their bills.

  Looking down, there was something that resembled a ledge running the length of the building. It looked about eight inches wide. Not ideal, but serviceable.

  “What do you think?” Don said.

  “I’m going to break the window with this cart,” I said. “When I do, I want you to squeeze off a couple of shots their way to mask the sound.”

  Emma said, “But you won’t be able to get back in. Or are you planning to carry the cart outside with you?”

  I thought for a second. “Give me the nine,” I said to Don.

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” Nevertheless, he traded me the Browning for Emma’s .380.

  “Why do you need his gun?” she asked.

  “Better penetration,” Don said. “He ought to be able to punch through the glass, unless it’s bulletproof.”

  “If it’s bulletproof, I won’t be able to break it with the cart either,” I said. “There should be thirteen left in the mag. Will that be enough?”

  “Go to hell,” Don said, then moved to the door. “Ready when you are.”

  I nodded and picked up the dining cart. “On three.”

  On the count, I swung the cart with all my might at the window as Don wrenched the door open and fired down the hallway. The blasts were like cannon fire in the room, and I was pretty sure the glass breaking hadn’t been heard.

  Don shouldered the door shut again. “The rearguard shooter is about twenty yards north. Going by the dimensions of this room, that means he’s three windows down.”

  “When you hear me shoot, come out the door and unleash hell,” I said.

  He said, “Just be sure to haul ass across that room. Thirteen rounds aren’t going to last very long.”

  “You got it.”

  Using the heavy curtain to protect my hand, I grasped the sill and eased my way out onto the ledge. It wasn’t much but supported most of my feet. I stuck the Browning in my waistband and hesitated.

  I looked at Emma, and my throat felt tight. In spite of the way things ended, it was good to see her. I needed to come up with a good farewell, something meaningful and profound that would resonate with her through the years in the very likely event I died as a result of this stupid stunt.

  “Uh, see you around, I guess.”

  Oh bravo, I thought, You’re an asshole, Clarke.

  Fortunately, Emma had better command of the scene and walked over to me, pausing a moment as I dangled (metaphorically) over the hospital parking lot.

  She kissed me. Didn’t see that coming.

  “Don’t die, moron.”

  She always was the romantic one.

  There are thoughts that go through your mind as you’re inching along a precarious ledge to what is quite possibly your doom. I expected my life to flash before me, or regrets of paths not taken, all that philosophical shit. Instead, what I was left with was: enough.

  This was, by my account, the third attempt on my and/or Charlie’s life in the last two days. I didn’t need a much clearer indication that we were on the right path to whoever was behind Mike’s disappearance, and I was ready to take the fight to those bastards.

  First, however, there was the immediate threat to deal with.

  Progress along the ledge was maddeningly slow, and I could see red and blue lights blinking frantically in the parking lot. SWAT was probably on the way, if not on site already, and the shooters should have known that. So why weren’t they pressing their advantage?

  Maybe they were idiots. Maybe — and this was an interesting thought — maybe they didn’t do this all the time.

  It would explain the guy at the house who couldn’t get past the front door entranceway without being detected. Even the guy driving the car hadn’t executed the spinout maneuver correctly.

  This was all food for later thought, because I was at the third window.

  The curtains were open, and the room looked mercifully empty. Bracing myself as well as I could on less than a foot of space, I put a hand in front of my face to shield it from broken glass and fired six shots in a rough circle about a foot in diameter.

  Sounds of Don shooting followed immediately, and I elbowed the glass as hard as I could, throwing my weight behind it in the hope the blow and my weight would carry me through the bullet-weakened window instead of bouncing me off and onto the asphalt 60 feet below. My luck held, and I crashed noisily into the room.

  I was barely up on my feet when the door opened and the muzzle of an automatic rifle poked through, firing on full auto. I dropped behind the bed as the window behind me shattered completely.

  Should’ve brought one of those, I thought.

  From my vantage under the bed, I saw the man enter, sweeping the room with his rifle as he did. I shot him twice in the knee/shin area, and when he dropped howling to the tile floor, I put two more rounds into his head.

  I crossed the room as quickly as possible and peered into the hallway. Don was standing over another man, who was in the process of bleeding out on the shiny hallway floor.

  “Clear?” I called out.

  “Clear,” he said.

  Emma emerged from Charlie’s room a second later. “Is it over?”

  “Yes,” Don and I said in unison.

  I walked over to where Don was impassively regarding the corpse at his feet. “Any problems?”

  “Nah,” he said. “He had his back to me. Must have thought we were both shimmying around the building.”

  “One of them should have come forward,” I said. “These dudes weren’t very smart.”

  Don shrugged. “They’re dead now. Who gives a shit?”

  I touched one of the rifles with my toe. “These are M-16s, not converted ARs, right?”

  He nodded, giving me a look. “This is military-issue hardware.”

  I turned to Emma. “Government conspiracies, you say?”

  Chapter THIRTY-FIVE

  In what was becoming a familiar scene, Don, Emma, and I were rounded up by the police and held in separate rooms for questioning. Since these were Harris County Sheriff deputies and not DHS, we were actually treated with a modicum of respect.

  But not too much.

  Having shot two of the three assailants, and also being one of the two assumed targets, I received the bulk of the attention. Charlie woke eventually and was hilariously befuddled as to why there were six cops in assault gear in her room

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any new information to give them. Don and I had searched the bodies and the only thing we learned was that whoever sent them had figured out not to send phones or IDs. The guys were generic white dudes. Only dead.

  I was cooling my heels in a conference room while the HCSO checked my CHL when who should walk in but
my old friend Roy DeSantos.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” was my greeting.

  He feigned offense. “That’s no way to talk to your only remaining friend in law enforcement.”

  “Seems like a friend would have known I was in DHS custody earlier tonight. A friend would’ve tried to get me out, even.”

  He said, “There wasn’t anything I could do about that. City cops can’t override federal authority, even if they want to.”

  “The hell does that mean?”

  “It means I can’t give you cover anymore,” he said. “You broke into a civilian’s house and they think you killed the guy.”

  I leaned back, bored. “The guy was long dead when I got there and Dr. Nick from The Simpsons could tell them that.”

  He said, “And what about tonight?”

  “What about it?” I asked.

  He scoffed, “You’re leaving a trail of bodies behind you a serial killer would envy. Enough is enough. Leave the rest of the investigation to professional police and let us do our jobs.”

  “I agree with you,” I said.

  “Dammit, Cy, I’m not … what?”

  “You’re right,” I continued, “enough is enough. I’m clearly doing more harm than good and I need to knock it off before innocent people are hurt.”

  Roy looked at me with frank distrust, which would’ve been insulting if he wasn’t exactly right.

  “That’s … good news,” he said finally. Then looked around the room. "Sorry, I'm still expecting the guy from Candid Camera to come out."

  "That'd be a neat trick, considering he died almost 20 years ago."

  "Good point."

  “Anything else?” I asked, smiling.

  “No,” he said. “Try to take care of your family and leave it up to us. We’ll find Mike.”

  No you won’t, I thought but didn’t say. I’d made up my mind what to do while having my ledge epiphany, but letting Roy know that would only complicate matters.

  Roy left and I was once again alone with my thoughts. There was planning to do and a tough road before we got Mike back, but all of that faded with exhaustion and I nodded off.