by Johnny Shaw
“People are still getting robbed.”
“But not hurt. Part of the Auction City tourist experience. A small price to pay for a good story to bring home to your neighbors in Wichita.”
“What if the problem Auction City has is that a cadre of criminal organizations is conspiring to control the entire city? Can Floodgate solve that problem?”
“No,” Rocco said with a wide grin, “because it’s the solution.”
The bell tied to the door rang loudly. Andy and Rocco turned. Kate rushed inside, breathing hard. She walked quickly to them. “We need to go. It’s all gone to hell.”
CHAPTER 18
We’re gonna need a bigger ark.
—Graffiti under the King Olaf Bridge (1975)
Kate threw a portable cherry top beacon on the roof of the station wagon, ran the siren, and hit the gas. Andy didn’t even know the car had a siren. Maybe they were in the Batmobile, instead of a station wagon with a missing door. The cigarette lighter probably triggered a hidden ejector seat.
The station wagon darted in and out of traffic, two tires over the curb getting around a slow-moving cab. Screeches and metal scraping. Without a passenger-side door, wind and gravel spit in Andy’s face and against his right arm. Red lights, stop signs, and pedestrians no longer mattered in Kate Girard’s world.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Andy said. He turned to Rocco.
“Hold on to something,” Rocco said calmly from the backseat. “That seat belt is broken.”
Andy reached for the seat belt around his waist. It came apart without pressing the button. He glanced up at the quickly approaching ass end of a moving van and tied the two ends in a granny knot. Kate juked around the van with a quick jerk of the wheel.
“You can’t just put a light on a car and blare a siren,” Andy said to get his mind off dying in a hulk of flaming metal. “If you could, everyone would do it.”
“They just haven’t thought to try,” Kate said, giving Andy a look that was usually reserved for a mother who’d just caught her toddler eating kitty litter. You’re stupid, but I’m not going to give up on you.
“Nun,” Andy yelled, pointing forward.
Kate caught the pedestrian out of the corner of her eye. She glided around the woman, missing by inches. The hem of the nun’s windswept scapular grazed Andy’s face.
Kate glanced over her shoulder. “I contacted our people. I’ll have access. Not you, of course. Find a phone. Get everyone ready. Moving.”
Rocco nodded, pulling out a small address book and flipping through it.
Kate turned to Andy. “This is serious, where we’re going, what’s happening. We’re going to need your help. You better be ready.”
“What’s going on?” Andy asked.
“The cops just declared war.”
The Town & Country screeched to a halt in front of a three-story brownstone. The tenements of the Ruins loomed just blocks away, but the corrosion of the slums didn’t carry over onto this street. The trees were healthy. The leaves raked. None of the buildings had bars on their windows. No graffiti on the walls. The street itself appeared freshly paved, which was a miracle in Auction City. With most of the city coffers siphoned directly into politicians’ and contractors’ pockets, the pothole stood as the city’s lovable mascot. It took serious weight to get one filled.
Four patrol cars, two unmarked cars, and a crime scene van sat scattered in front of one building. Police tape cordoned off the building and sidewalk from the growing crowd. Through the nonexistent passenger-side door, Andy heard the neighborhood folk launching questions, speaking loudly, for now peaceful but a cough away from chaos. A couple of nervous cops eyed the curious and angry.
“Keep your mouth shut. Play Watson,” Kate said before getting out of the car.
“What does that mean?” Andy turned back to Rocco. “Does that make her Sherlock?”
“It makes her boss,” Rocco said.
Kate ducked under the police tape and joined a detective. She looked behind her, didn’t find Andy there, and motioned disappointedly with one hand for him to come. Andy hurried over, got caught and uncaught in the police tape, and joined the huddle. The moment the plainclothes detective spotted Andy, his face changed.
“What’s he doing here?” the detective said. “You know who he is?”
“He’s with me. Consulting work,” Kate said. “Is there going to be a problem?”
The cop gave Andy a one-eyed stare, spit on the ground in the opposite direction. “Don’t raise a stink. Don’t get noticed. Don’t touch nothing. Don’t get in no one’s way. My ass is on the line. You can look, but it’s not an open invite.”
Kate walked toward the front door, Andy following. When they were out of earshot, Kate said, “We got a few friends on the force. Here’s the thing. Odds are, cops did this. If that’s the case, the evidence is already lost or compromised. Their investigation will be a joke. This is our only shot to maybe learn something.”
Kate handed Andy two rubber gloves, then put a pair on herself.
“I never worked homicide, which I’m assuming is what this is. You really think the cops killed someone?” Andy said.
“Payback for Gray.”
“Holy Christ. Who did they pay back? I’m right here,” Andy said. “This is my fault.”
“See what you see,” Kate said. “Not just the crime scene, but watch the cops.”
“Whose house is this?”
Kate ignored the question. “Are you okay with blood?”
“Not great,” Andy said. “Why I preferred a desk.”
“I’ve got smelling salts in my purse just in case.”
The front room was simply decorated, a middle-class home. A girl’s bicycle leaned against a wall, pink tassels draped from the glittery handlebars. One of the more ominous items to find at a crime scene. A photo of a Latino couple with a young daughter hung on the wall next to an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
A crime scene tech with a clipboard and a few evidence bags walked past Kate and Andy to the front door. He gave them a puzzled look but didn’t say anything.
“Who’s the primary?” Kate asked as he passed.
“Sean Thornton,” the man said and left.
Andy leaned in and stared at the family photo. “Is that—”
“Hector Costales,” Kate said.
“Oh, shit. Is this because—he’s dead?” Andy said. “Because of Gray? That’s bad.”
Kate nodded.
Andy shook his head. “Not just bad. It’s bad bad. In the poor neighborhoods, the gangs, even regular folk, they treat him like the Second Coming. The city will riot.”
Kate nodded.
Andy leaned in, keeping his voice to a whisper. “If the cops had anything to do with this and it gets out, it’ll—I have no idea what it’ll do.”
“Now you know what we do and why,” Kate said, moving through the house.
“No, I don’t.”
Turning a corner into the living room, the first thing Andy saw was the blood. It was impossible to miss. It was everywhere. Which made sense, considering the four shot-up bodies littering the room. The man closest to the sliding glass door that led to the back door had been practically cut in half, the carpet saturated black underneath him.
There were too many people in the room. Cops and technicians stayed on the perimeter, taking notes and talking to each other, but he could see blood on their shoes and smears where they’d tracked it. One of them laughed at the end of someone’s joke. They were casual amid the carnage. A couple of cops smoked, using an ashtray that already had some butts in it. They weren’t concerned about contamination. Or cancer.
A photographer tiptoed around the bloodstains, snapping each body at multiple angles, the flash popping and humming. For balance, the photog leaned against the wall and a table, his fingerprints joining any others.
But Andy’s eyes kept returning to the blood. So much blood. He grew light-headed. An elbow on the wall, he took a deep breath,
but the thick, meaty smell made it worse. His stomach turned. The world grew yellow. He closed his eyes and counted slowly backward from ten. He got to seven.
Andy woke to an acrid and painful sear in his nostrils. He snapped away his head, banging it on the door frame. Kate pulled the smelling salts away, her expression somewhere between disappointment and amusement. He’d fainted, splayed on the ground, legs at odd angles. All the cops in the room looked his way, cruel smiles on their faces. Most shook their heads in disgust.
Andy pushed himself up. His hand sank into bloody carpet, the liquid squeezing to the surface, between his fingers. His head got foggy again. He decided that he was fine where he was.
“Give me a sec,” he said.
“An inauspicious beginning,” Kate said.
“You get what you pay for.”
“While you’re down there. Tell me what you see.”
“Blood. Mostly blood.” He looked at his hand stained with someone else’s blood. Kate handed him a handkerchief. He scrubbed at it, but it left a stain and dark red around his fingernails.
Andy handed the used handkerchief to Kate, but she didn’t take it. He shoved it in his pocket and took in the room, starting with the banner that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY taped to the ceiling and coming off at one corner. A blood-spattered birthday cake lie on the ground, a clear boot print in the frosting.
Andy sat up quickly. “Where’s the kid? Were there kids?”
Kate put a hand on his shoulder. “Just the daughter. She’s okay. They left the girl unhurt. Cops and social services have her.”
“They get anything from her?”
Kate shook her head. “Only that her mommy and daddy are dead.”
Andy nodded. A stupid, insensitive question.
“Let’s talk about the obvious,” Andy said. “It’s the work of a group of people. Organized. Maybe military. The man on the couch doesn’t look like he had a chance to move.”
“That’s Hector Costales. His wife next to him.”
“Whatever happened, happened fast. Probably three men. Maybe more, but they would have bottlenecked at the back door. I would guess professional violence,” Andy said. “That boot print could be something. But the cops trampled most of it. I see a few different shell casings from here. There won’t be any usable prints. Looks like someone took a bite out of that piece of cake. One of the shooters getting cute, maybe.”
Andy rose to his feet, keeping a hand on the door frame. Sweat poured from his face, but he felt his legs beneath him, his blood pressure adjusting.
“Know anything about the other bodies?” he asked.
“Could be friends. Or a couple of Hector’s lieutenants.”
“What in the hell?” Sean Thornton stomped straight through the crime scene, contaminating it and tracking bloody boot prints in his wake. “How did this rat-faced prick get in here?”
“The mayor asked us to poke our head in,” Kate said. “See if we could assist.”
“He’s with you, Girard?” the Thornton asked. Veins in his neck bulged. His face red. “Then I want both of you gone.”
“Any suspects?” Kate asked, calm.
“No, but there could always be a couple more bodies.”
In the short time Kate and Andy had spent at the crime scene, the crowd outside had doubled. And gotten louder. Word had spread. People shouted questions at the cops. Two television news vans had found the site, reporters and camera operators jostling for the best spot to get the shot. Andy recognized four different sets of gang colors, including the Voodoo Posse, Cash Money Brothers, T-Birds, and a large contingent from the Wretches. They were all Consolidated.
Hector Costales had originally been the leader of the Wretches, the oldest and largest gang in Auction City. Until he found a way to unite the ten largest gangs, forming Consolidated. At first feared, the community quickly embraced the idea once they saw the street violence all but disappear. They even made a movie about it, but in typical Hollywood fashion, the story got changed in development. A good movie, just not historically accurate.
“What happened to Hector?” someone shouted.
“Cops finally kilt him,” another yelled in response.
Kate and Andy stood inside the police tape but away from the growing army of cops. It didn’t take a tarot reading to see where this was headed.
“A lot has to happen fast,” Kate said. “We’ve got to coordinate with Consolidated leadership. Without Hector, there’s nobody in charge. The whole thing could all fall apart today. We can’t have that kind of chaos on top of this. This city loves a riot.”
Andy looked back to the crowd, now chanting, “Pigs kill. Kill the pigs.” He spotted Rebane waddling through the mob, a corn dog in one hand, a microphone in another. A cord ran from the mike to a recorder in his pocket. He and Andy made eye contact. Rebane gave Andy a questioning smile, then wagged his eyebrows, looking toward Kate. Andy pretended he hadn’t seen him.
“This is all about revenge for Gray’s murder. They know the burglary story is bullshit,” Kate said. “Hank Robinson and Gray weren’t just colleagues. They were friends. With Robinson in charge now, he’s going to come at us. Costales was the wrong target for Gray’s shooter, but Robinson won’t stop there. Not how the cops work.”
“It could be Gray himself,” Andy said.
Kate laughed. “From beyond the grave? Is he a zombie or a ghost?”
Andy shook his head. “Robinson isn’t smart enough for something this well planned. He could be finishing what Gray started. Someone tried to kill me before Gray died. What if Gray set this in motion? Gray is making his move to take over the city. Except he’s dead.”
Kate thought about that for a second. “It definitely has Gray’s handwriting on it. He kills two birds. Costales’s death creates chaos within Consolidated—plus he gets some riots. Nothing like riots to remind the deeper pockets that they need a strong police force to keep the barbarians at the gate.” Kate stepped away from Andy, looking at the crowd. “Gray or Robinson or both, someone’s coming for us.”
“We need to talk to the guy you got locked up. The one that tried to kill me.”
“We have to warn the others,” Kate said. “Consider ourselves targets, as well.”
A bottle smashed against the side of the building. The cops turned, one pulling his weapon but keeping it trained at the ground.
A group of young men started to rock one of the police cars back and forth in an effort to flip it. Down the street, more and more people arrived from the direction of the Ruins. A police van crept through the crowd, palms slapping its side. When the back opened, SWAT in riot gear exited and created a line in front of the building.
This was just the beginning. It was going to get worse. A lot worse.
1929
LONG PAST DAYS
Sal took me and the girl into the warmth of the Turkish baths. Safe for the moment, I would never feel secure. For the rest of my life, I would always be ready to run.
My clothes, rags. Burnt, torn, filthy. Raiding the closets of the baths. Lost and found. Abandoned remnants. Shirts. Pants. Socks. Shoes. I gussied up. Pieced together a fresh suit. It almost fit. Even grabbed a tie. Not to wear. To kill quietly. My thinking perverted. All objects now murder devices.
The girl came in. Wearing a fresh dress. Small. Wet red hair. Freckled face clean of sewer grime and ash. Bruised and cut. Blushing at my wide eyes. Looking down at the floor made her prettier. Modesty turned to anger. Eyes fire.
“Don’t make me clobber you.” Punched my arm and walked away.
I was in love.
Twenty men gathered around the tiled pools. Sweating in the steam. Winter outside. August in there. I regretted choosing tweed. Me and the girl, we stayed against the wall. Bystanders, not participants.
A few eyed the girl. Said nothing. I didn’t like how they looked at her. No different from the men in the sewer. Confusing beauty and youth with something weak. Something they could take. I wouldn’t let them. When they
saw the murder in my eyes, they looked away.
Fat Jimmy plotted, planned, ordered. His men leaned close. Whispers back and forth. Getting a message and leaving to carry it out. Bathhouse turned war room.
A line of men waited for orders. Standing at attention. Tommy guns. Pistols. Knives. Bloody faces and bodies. Jaws clenched. If they were afraid, it didn’t show.
Sal spotted me. Walked over. A slight limp. Some burns and bruises. A long slice across his cheek and lip.
“Who is she?” Like the girl wasn’t there.
“A friend. My friend.”
He took a look at her. Shook his head. Turned back to me. “You try to take care of her, she’ll get you killed.”
“I can take care of myself, you guinea prick.” The girl’s hand on the butt of her pistol.
Sal slapped her and took her pistol away. A half second. All it took. She held her face. Not scared. Embarrassed.
My hand was on my cleaver. Don’t remember moving it there. Didn’t know until later that I was ready to kill Sal. If his hand rose to her again, I would have tried.
Guido Rattone ran in. Arrow in his shoulder like in a cowboy movie. Yelling for everyone to come out to the street. To grab their weapons.
“Don’t shoot me, gal.” Sal handed the pistol back to her. Turned to me, glanced at my hand on the cleaver. “She might get you killed, Rocky, but people have died for worse reasons.”
Sal and the other men hurried outside.
“You okay?” I asked the girl. She wouldn’t make eye contact. Her cheek bright red.
“I’ve been hit before.”
“There are hundreds of them.”
“Thousands.”
“I’ve never seen so many goddamn Chinamen in all my life.”
The girl and I stood in the bathhouse doorway. Glimpses between heads and shoulders. Everyone taller, on toes to see for themselves. All eyes on the street. Fat Jimmy’s men peeked past the wood and metal. At the deliverers of their demise.
Rows and rows of Chinese. An army in bloodstained white. Torches in some hands. Weapons in others. Few guns, mostly sharpened steel. Swords, axes, knives, and diabolical weapons with strange oriental names that I would never know. Twisted, deadly shapes.
