Jack Daniels Six Pack

by J. A. Konrath

  “Thanks for inviting me over, Mr. Patel. Do you live alone?”

  Fuller pulls back into traffic.

  “I suppose we’ll find out.”

  CHAPTER 46

  When I pulled onto my street and saw the flashing lights in front of my apartment, I knew. I threw the car into park, got out, and ran.

  “Jack!” I faintly heard Alan call after me.

  Herb was standing in the lobby. He saw me, and rushed over to hug.

  “Jack, we thought he got you.”

  “Fuller?” I managed.

  “Killed three cops and a bunch of others, escaping.”

  My eyes welled up.

  “M-Mom?”

  “They’re about to bring her down.”

  “Dead?”

  “No, but she’s in bad shape.”

  I pulled out of Herb’s grasp, raced up the stairs.

  Cops, paramedics, a crime scene unit. Pained looks from people I knew. A black body bag, on the floor of my kitchen.

  My breath caught. I unzipped the bag.

  Mr. Griffin, half of his head missing.

  I pushed into the living room, saw the stretcher, watched some horribly beaten body being intubated.

  “. . . oh no . . .”

  I rushed to her side, unable to reconcile it in my head, unable to believe that this broken, bleeding thing was my mother.

  Her hand was cool and limp. The paramedics pushed me away. I wanted to follow, wanted to go with her, but my legs gave out and I collapsed onto the floor.

  Something brushed against my leg.

  Mr. Friskers.

  I grabbed the cat and held him tight and cried and cried and cried until nothing more came out.

  CHAPTER 47

  Doctors came and went, talking about Glasgow Scales and Rancho Los Amigos levels of cognitive functioning. I was too numb to pay attention. I only knew that Mom wouldn’t wake up.

  Two days passed, or maybe it was three. People visited and stayed for a while and left. Alan. Herb. Libby. Captain Bains. Harry. Specialists and nurses and cops.

  Guards were posted outside my door. I found this amusing. As if Fuller could possibly hurt me more than he already had.

  Benedict kept me updated on the manhunt, but the news was always the same: no sign of Fuller.

  “She’s probably going to die,” I said to Herb.

  “We’ll get him.”

  “Getting him won’t make her better.”

  “I know. But what else can we do?”

  “I should have been there.”

  “Don’t play that game, Jack.”

  “I should have killed Fuller when I had the chance.”

  “This isn’t helping the situation.”

  I got in Benedict’s face. “Nothing will help this situation! This is my mom, lying here. And she’s lying here because of me. Because of my job.”

  “Jack . . .”

  “To hell with it, Herb. To hell with all of it.”

  My star was in my pocket. I held it out, made Benedict take it.

  “Give this to Bains. I don’t want it anymore.”

  “He won’t accept it, Jack.”

  “He’ll have to.”

  Benedict clutched my badge and got all teary-eyed on me.

  “Dammit, Jack. You’re a good cop.”

  “I wasn’t good enough.”

  “Jack . . .”

  “I’d like you to leave, Herb.” I watched my words register on his face. “And please don’t come back.”

  CHAPTER 48

  He watches Detective First Class Herb Benedict leave the hospital. Unlike Jack, Herb doesn’t have an armed escort.

  Big mistake.

  Herb climbs into his late model Camaro Z28, starts it up. Fuller starts the cab and follows Herb out of the parking lot, turning left onto Damen.

  It’s nighttime, cold enough to need the defrosters. The cab smells like blood; Fuller never bothered to clean up after dispatching the hack. Normally it’s a smell he enjoys, but pain is playing tug of war in Fuller’s head, his injured eye and his unrelenting headache each vying for top honors.

  The eye has gotten worse. It’s infected, there’s no doubt. Fuller can’t open the lid, and it’s leaking a milky, foul-smelling fluid.

  Goddamn cat.

  The throbbing in his head has returned with a vengeance too. It’s even worse than before the operation. Fuller wonders if the doctors really got all of the tumor out. Perhaps they’d left a teeny-tiny piece in his brain, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger every day, growing like a seed.

  Benedict parks alongside the street, in front of a health food store. Fuller waits until he leaves the vehicle and enters the shop. Then he pulls into an alley.

  Fuller doesn’t think Herb will be tough to handle, but he’s no geriatric, either. He has a plan to keep the cop under control.

  Two days ago, Fuller shot a street corner dealer and relieved him of his stash. He scored a lot of reefer (which Fuller thought might help his eye but didn’t do a damn thing), a few grams of coke, and three balloons of black tar heroin, complete with works.

  The heroin went down smooth. Fuller boiled the needle first and had no problem tapping a vein—it reminded him of his steroid days.

  Blessed pain relief.

  The last hit he took, a few hours ago, is wearing off. He has one syringe left, resting safely in the inside breast pocket of his jacket, a piece of cork on the tip.

  He prefers to use it on himself, but if Benedict gets rowdy . . .

  Speaking of, the portly detective comes out of the health food store with a protein bar. His attention occupied with unwrapping the snack, Fuller sidles up behind him.

  Benedict spins around, reaching for his gun, but Fuller anticipates the move and grabs Herb’s wrist. His grip tight, he gets behind Benedict and applies a hammerlock, one arm around his neck, another pinning Herb’s wrist behind his back.

  “Hello, Detective. Glad to see you’re watching your health.”

  Benedict reaches for his shoulder holster with his free hand and Fuller tightens the submission hold. Benedict is strong, but not strong enough. With a quick jerk, Fuller yanks upward on the older man’s arm. Benedict’s elbow hyperextends, and then blows out.

  Herb is yelling now, fighting like crazy, but Fuller has a firm grip on his bad arm and levers him into the alley. He forces Benedict to his knees, pulls the cork from the needle with his lips, and jabs the fat man in the neck.

  Benedict continues to resist, but slowly, sweetly, the energy goes out of him.

  Fuller replaces the cork, tucks away the syringe, takes Herb’s gun, and muscles him into the back of the cab.

  Then he goes prowling for more smack.

  The taxi makes him invisible—urban camouflage—so he’s free to cruise parts of the city where a Caucasian might ordinarily stand out. He drives to 26th and Kedzie, an area known as Little Mexico. It doesn’t take long to find a young Hispanic male hanging out on a corner. Cold night to be just hanging out, alone.

  He circles the block twice, and then stops. The youth walks over in the wide, unhurried gait of a young man whose pants are too baggy.

  “Tienes cocofan?”

  The Latino has a little peach-fuzz goatee, and a gold crucifix hanging from his ear. “Que?”

  “Cocofan, puto. Zoquete. Calbo. Perlas?”

  “Calbo?”

  “Yes, jackass. Heroin.”

  “No tengo calbo. Tengo Hydro, vato.”

  Fuller sighs, and shoots the kid in his sideways-tilted baseball cap.

  Rico Suave takes the big dirt nap, and Fuller steps out and gives him a quick pat-down. He finds three loose joints, and six vials of brown granules.

  “No calbo my ass.”

  Fuller squeals tires, heading back to his hidey-hole on Clybourn.

  Twice, people try to hail him. Fuller slows down, lets them get close, and then pulls away before they can get in the cab.

  Good, clean, American fun.

  Be
nedict moans in the backseat.

  “We’ll be home soon, Detective.”

  Chaten Patel shared a residence with his girlfriend. Fuller never got her name. They lived on the ground floor of a two-flat. A modest place, old but clean, with a large basement they used for storage.

  The basement currently stores Chaten, and what’s left of his woman.

  Fuller parks the taxi in the alley behind the house, and half-carries/half-walks Benedict through the backyard and down the steps to the basement entrance. Herb obligingly has a pair of handcuffs in his pocket, and Fuller locks the detective’s bad arm to a pipe under the concrete shop sink, and takes his keys.

  The corpses have begun to smell, but Fuller won’t be here for long. Once Daniels is dead, he’s going to make good on his original intent and flee to Mexico.

  But first things first.

  Upstairs, Fuller fills up a pot with some water, puts it on the stove, and drops in the syringe.

  As it boils, Fuller removes a heroin vial from his pocket and shakes out four big chunks. It doesn’t look like the black tar he’s been using—it’s lighter in color, and crumbles easier. He sniffs it. There’s no odor of vinegar, a telltale trait of smack.

  What did that kid call it? Hydro? Maybe it’s a hybrid—heroin and coke, or heroin and XTC.

  Fuller doesn’t care. It could be heroin and rat poison, and he’ll inject it just the same. He needs a break from the pain.

  There’s a fat candle on the kitchen counter that smells like vanilla. Fuller lights it, dumps the boiling water into the sink, and puts the syringe back together.

  Placing the granules in a metal tablespoon, he adds a squirt of water and holds the spoon over the candle flame.

  With his free hand he removes a cotton ball from the open bag on the table and rolls it between his fingers until it’s the size of a pea. When the drugs are fully dissolved, he puts the cotton on the spoon and watches it expand.

  The needle goes into the center of the ball, the plunger is slowly pulled back, and all Fuller has to do is pick a vein and the good times will roll.

  Not yet, though. First, he has a phone call to make.

  Fuller takes out his cell phone and punches in Jack’s number. Then he heads down the basement stairs, to wake up Herb.

  CHAPTER 49

  My cell phone rang. I ignored it.

  Though Mom was nonresponsive to sound and touch, she still had brain activity, so I talked to her.

  I talked about a lot of things.

  Sometimes I talked about silly stuff, like the weather, or people we used to know. Other times I spilled my guts, apologizing for what happened, begging forgiveness she couldn’t give.

  Tonight I was in begging mode.

  My cell rang, again. I couldn’t handle any more condolences. Even from friends. Especially from friends. I finally had to tell Alan to back off, give me room to breathe, or I’d go crazy.

  On the positive side, I hadn’t taken any sleeping pills in days. I embraced my insomnia.

  The phone rang once more. I finally picked it up and shut the damn thing off. I was crying, again, and I didn’t want to talk to anybody.

  Before I could begin another apology to Mom, the room phone rang.

  I let it ring. And ring. And ring. It eventually stopped. Then it started again. Couldn’t whoever it was take a hint?

  “What?” I answered.

  “Hi, Jack.”

  I almost dropped the phone in surprise. Fuller.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to pick up. That wouldn’t have been good for your friend here. Say hello, Herb.”

  A male voice screamed.

  “Herb’s not doing so well. And if you don’t follow my directions, he’s going to be doing even worse. Here’s what I want you to do.”

  In the background Herb yelled, “It’s a trap, Jack! Don’t—”

  Followed by another scream, even louder than before.

  I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry.

  “What do you want, Fuller?”

  “Turn your cell phone back on and call me on my cell. When you’re ready, I’ll give you the number.”

  I powered up my cell phone and punched in what he told me. It rang once, and he picked up.

  “Good. Now hang up the hospital phone. Here’s the deal. I want you to come over and join our party. We’re having fun, right, Herb?”

  Another scream.

  “I’ll be right over.” I clenched the phone so tightly it shook. “Want me to stop for beer and pretzels?”

  “Funny. What I want you to do is lose the police escort.”

  “How?”

  “Tell them you got a call from me, and I’m in the parking lot. Be convincing. If you try to give them any signals . . .”

  Benedict screamed again.

  “Stop hurting him.”

  “Hurting him? You mean like this?”

  I shut my eyes while poor Herb wailed in agony.

  “I’ll do what you say, Barry.”

  “Good girl. Remember—I’m listening. Ready . . . go!”

  I went into the hallway and yelled at the two cops on duty.

  “Fuller just called me! He’s in the parking garage!”

  They drew weapons and took off down the hall.

  “Are they gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s nearby?”

  “No one. A nurse.”

  “Give the nurse the phone.”

  “Why?”

  Mistake. A part of me died inside when I heard Herb’s scream.

  “Nurse!” I hurried to her. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

  She gave me a quizzical look. “Who?”

  “Just tell him whatever he wants to know.”

  The nurse took the phone. “No. . . . Nope. . . . Nobody.” Then she handed it back. “He wanted to know if there were any men outside the door to room 514.”

  I growled into the cell. “Satisfied?”

  “Not yet. But I will be. Get in your car and go north on Lasalle. I want to hear your voice the whole time.”

  “What if the cell signal goes out?”

  Herb screamed again.

  “You’d better make sure it doesn’t, Jack. Now keep talking. Start with the ABC’s.”

  I recited the alphabet while I hurried through the corridor. Elevator or stairs? Which was better for cell transmission? I picked the stairs, moving as fast as I could. When I made it down to the parking garage, I saw one of the cops ordered to guard me, his gun drawn, creeping around a corner. I threw my back against a wall so he didn’t see me.

  “Jack? You there?”

  “. . . Q . . . R . . . S . . . T . . . U . . .”

  I paused for a moment, and then made a beeline for my car, stepping lightly so my footsteps didn’t echo on the asphalt.

  My cell reception became staticky.

  “It sounds like I’m losing you, Jack. I hope not, for Herb’s sake. Frankly, I don’t know how much more he can take.”

  I made it to my car and fumbled with the keys, beginning the alphabet for the third time. When I opened the door, one of my cops saw me.

  “Lieutenant! We can’t find him!”

  “Uh-oh, Jack,” Fuller purred into the phone. “You’d better hurry.”

  I hopped in the driver’s seat, my cell signal getting even weaker. I was yelling the alphabet now, hoping my louder voice got through. Both cops converged on my car. I jammed it into gear and hit the gas.

  The exit was up a concrete ramp.

  “Jack?” Barry was yelling. “I can’t hear you, Jack. Jack—”

  The phone went dead.

  CHAPTER 50

  Fuller scowls at the dial tone. He hits Redial. Daniels picks up immediately.

  “I lost the signal on the exit ramp. I didn’t do anything stupid.” She sounds anxious, breathless.

  “How can I believe you, Jack?”

  “Don’t hurt him again.”

  Fuller lifts his foot, ready to stomp
on Benedict’s dislocated elbow. Herb stares up at him, hate in his eyes.

  “We had a deal, Jack.”

  “If I hear him scream once more, I swear to God, I’m hanging up and throwing my phone out the window.”

  “How do I know the cops aren’t with you?”

  “I’m alone. I ditched them in the parking garage.”

  “Maybe you called for backup, on your radio.”

  “I didn’t have time. If my radio was on, you’d hear it.”

  Fuller walks away from Herb, takes the Sig out of his belt. He fires a round, up the stairs.

  “What did you just do, Barry? Let me talk to Herb.”

  “That was a warning. If I think you’re lying to me, if I think you’re bringing more cops, I end Herb Benedict’s life. Understand?”

  “Let me talk to Herb.”

  Fuller rolls his eyes. He holds out the phone. “Herb, say something.”

  Benedict looks away, lips pressed shut.

  “Hold on a second, Jack. He’s being stoic.”

  Fuller plays pull’n’ bend with Herb’s swollen arm until the guy sings like a choir boy.

  “Tell her you’re okay.”

  “Jack!” Benedict screams. “Don’t come!”

  “There, Jack? Satisfied he’s still with us?”

  “When I get there, Barry . . .”

  “Stop it, Jack. You’re scaring me. Where are you?”

  “Going north on Lasalle.”

  “When you get to Division Street, take a left. And let’s hear that alphabet.”

  Jack begins the ABC’s again, and Fuller goes back upstairs. His head thumps like someone’s bouncing a bat off of it, and his eye does its best to compete for the gold medal in the Pain Olympics.

  The syringe calls to him from the kitchen table.

  One little shot, and the pain will go away.

  But Daniels will be here soon. That will also make the pain go away.

  The head pain. Not the eye pain. Take the shot.

  She’s coming armed. It’s important to stay alert.

  You can handle her. Take the shot.

  Fuller lifts the needle. His arms are weight-lifter arms, the veins pushed to the surface by all the muscle. He doesn’t need to tie off.