I burst out into the rain and got my bearings. He would come out of the main entrance, and I would be ready for him. I didn't just have a new hat and coat, but I bought myself some snazzy aqua-shoes, specifically for sneaking up or running like a cheetah through the streets without falling on my butt because of the wet ground. I was about ten feet from the corner when he appeared, and he instantly saw me. He aimed and fired. But again, I wasn't hit. The victim was an old man next to me. He was hit in the chest and fell to the ground with a look of pain and terror. His eyes closed, but then fluttered wildly to match the shaking his body was doing.
"Hold him down and help me," I called out, but people moved away from us in their black and gray slickers. Some even pretended they had seen nothing.
I was even madder now. I searched the man for his mobile and pressed the emergency button.
"This is 9-11. What is the emergency?" the computer voice said.
I put the mobile back in the old man's pocket and stood up. Most people didn't know that when you called the emergency, you didn't even need to say a word; police would automatically be dispatched. Was he a third man that the man in the white suit killed?
My piece was in my right hand and I ran. No, I sprinted around the corner after him. As soon as I came around, I immediately saw him about twenty feet away. His nice clothes weren't so nice anymore, but muddied—he had fallen. He wasn't running, but trying to speed-walk away. He saw me and tried to run again and immediately slipped and fell face first to the pavement.
I approached him like a rocket. He picked himself off the ground and turned. I shot him once in the chest and the second time in the shoulder. He cried out, but again, didn't fall. He turned back around and tried to run. Why wasn't this guy falling down? I flipped the switch on my gun, aimed, and fired one round after the other.
People jumped away, ducked, dove into stores, pressed themselves to the wall. I was running through the streets of Metropolis, in public, shooting at another person. If any policeperson saw me, they could legally just shoot me dead on sight.
The man had disappeared around the corner and I was there. He was finally on the ground, lying flat on his back. His gun wasn't in his hand anymore, but on the ground next to him. I slowly walked to him with my gun pointed. He started up at me, his eyelids flickering as the light rain fell.
"You killed three people," I yelled and aimed at his head.
He closed his eyes as he turned his head from me.
"He killed my brother," he said, then coughed.
I leaned forward and his face had an unnatural look to it.
This was a mess. People all around the streets were filming me with their mobiles, so really, there was no point in running. I could make up a plausible story if I stayed; I couldn't if I fled the scene. But if I stayed, there would be a strong possibility I'd be going to jail for the first time in my life—for the second time. Yes, I couldn't forget about my "bonding" moment with my future parents-in-law.
Chapter 41
Detective Monitor
THE POLICE ARRIVED in force. Three separate crime scenes, but all connected—to me. I sat on the wet sidewalk in handcuffs, waiting. One male and one female officer stood there, watching me with their hands on their weapon belts.
Another officer arrived, not with the standard half-helmet, but a simple black baseball cap. "Is this him?" he asked as he approached.
The two officers nodded.
The police detective took my ID from them and studied it.
"Mr. Cruz, is it?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"Two casualties in an office. One casualty around the corner. One casualty here. Did you shoot all these people, Mr. Cruz?"
"I only shot the man here. He was the active shooter."
"Was he now?"
"Yeah, and I know you did the ballistic test already, or I'd be in the jail now. When do you unhandcuff me and let me go about my day?"
"And the gun my officers took off of you was the weapon?"
"Yeah. I got it off one of the men shot, a detective named Box."
"Are you licensed to carry a firearm, Mr. Cruz?"
"I don't need to be licensed to fire a gun when I'm firing at an active shooter in self-defense. He shot three people and would have shot more if I hadn't shot him."
"Active shooter, huh?"
"What phrase should I use?" I asked. "Unfriendly person?"
"Maybe he wouldn't have shot anyone if you weren't chasing him with a gun."
"I took Box's gun when he came in and started shooting at us. And he already shot the other guy in the office before that. You know, why don't we ask that old man or his family? Should I have shot the guy who shot you or let him get away? Are you going to unhandcuff me? You have my statement and all the guns involved."
"Do we have all the guns involved, Mr. Cruz? 'Cause I think the gun you say was Box's is actually your throwaway gun, and you hid your real gun."
"Did you find another gun?"
"Not yet."
"Are you going to arrest me? I have rights, you know."
"We're thinking about it."
"I'm allowed to defend myself."
"Not as an unlicensed civilian."
"If I didn't have a gun to protect myself, I'd be dead and maybe a lot of other innocent bystanders would be, too. Police can carry guns, but the people can't?"
"Mr. Cruz, you can carry whatever toy gun, bullet gun, or laser gun you like, as long as it's registered, and you're licensed. Mine is licensed. My officers' guns are licensed. What about you? I hear you're a clever one. You can weasel out of using someone else's gun for self-defense, but to avoid arrest and adjudication at a trial, you need to be licensed to use a gun. That's why you're supposed to stay and call the police."
"It was exigent circumstances."
The three laughed.
"Are you a lawyer, Mr. Cruz?" the detective asked.
"No. And my license is in my wallet. For your inspection."
They looked at each other. I could see it in the detective's face: I was not supposed to be licensed. They took my wallet from my jacket and opened it.
"You got a counterfeit gun license, Mr. Cruz?" the detective asked.
The officers handed it to the detective. I could see the anger on his face as he studied it.
"How did you get a federal license, Mr. Cruz?"
"I can't remember."
The detective held the license in his hand, trying to think of something. He held the gun license in front of the officers. It wasn't for them to see; it was for the body cams to scan it. Someone was talking into his earbud. After a moment, the detective handed the license back to one of the officers, one of them returned it to my jacket, and both lifted me to my feet and unhandcuffed me.
"You think you're clever, Mr. Cruz," the detective said. "I'm pretty clever, too."
"Then why do the street cops call you Detective Do-Little?" I asked.
"What did you say?" The detective angrily snapped back.
"Nothing," I said.
I could see the two officers were biting their lips not to smile.
"I want him cited," the detective said to them.
"For what, exactly, Detective Monitor."
"Discharging a weapon in public."
"That was self-defense," I said.
"This is what, your fourth contact with the police in 30 days? Cite him as a possible person of interest to appear before a judge. You're only allowed three contacts with the police in a month, or you're sent before a judge. You think I'm a pain. They'll have you in those mandatory "how not to be a criminal" classes for 72 hours. I hear people purposely try to harm themselves to get out of those classes."
"You said I had to be licensed, then I show you my license, and you're punishing me. For the damn one-millionth time, an active shooter came into a private office and started shooting people. I get to protect myself, you know, and not allow myself or other innocent people to get killed."
By this time, I was p
issed.
"I'm citing you anyway, and you will go to an anti-criminality class."
"That 'how not to be a criminal' weekend class is nothing but an act of unmitigated cruelty to humankind." The street officers laughed, but the detective was unmoved.
"Is this how you treat the pro-police community? Review the file, the real file and not the summary, and you'll see it was not my fault. Seriously. Also, if you look at my jacket, you'll see I've never had a contact, arrest, citation, warning, ever in my life. I was even a police intern."
"Police intern? What's that?"
"When I was in high school, I interned at Police Central."
"No way."
"Yes way. It's true."
"I don't know, Mr. Cruz. We can't prove it, but I know the gun we retrieved was your throwaway gun. Someone who thinks he's more clever than the police will soon have delusions of grandeur and want to do other things, believe they are a master criminal genius."
"Detective, all I was thinking of was the innocent people the shooter killed."
"Who got killed?"
"The people."
Detective Monitor shook his head. "That old man is fine. The two guys in the office are alive, though one is in serious condition. And even the active shooter of yours you claim did the evil deeds is alive in serious condition."
Box was not dead! "What hospital are they at?"
"Why do you need to know the hospital?"
"Box was the guy I was meeting with when we were attacked. Why wouldn't I want to know where he is to visit him?"
The detective ignored him. "Cite him and sign him up for the anti-criminality class."
"That class is torture. Everybody says that."
"Good, you'll be able to experience it firsthand and not have to go by secondhand accounts."
I shook my head as the female officer handed me the citation with a smile.
"Thanks a lot for nothing, detective."
"Think of me when you're sitting in the class," he said sarcastically.
"Oh yeah, I'll be thinking about you, all right," I said.
Detective Monitor blew a kiss at me.
I needed to get to hospital. They didn't need to tell me which one. I already knew.
Chapter 42
Box and Rexx
I WAS ALWAYS OF TWO minds inside a hospital. On one hand, it was a shining example of society's amazing technology, which was for nothing less than to make people whole and save lives. But on the other hand, since anyone off the street was sent here first, it was a breeding ground of nastiness: germs, bacteria, viruses, and disease—a place only slightly better than the meat morgue.
I took out a bottle from my pocket and sprayed a shot up each nostril when no one was looking. The immune system booster product probably was a complete waste of my money, but it made me feel better, since I couldn't put on a full biohazard suit.
Metro General Hospital was where everyone was taken, unless you were wealthy or politically connected. I had some familiarity with the place from my hovercar racing days. More than a few drivers crashed into a communications or light pole, and this is where the ambulance took them.
Always hectic, Metro General did not have the best specialists, but it was the largest and in the center of the city. I sat in the waiting area of Floor 76. Box was out of surgery and was taken here...and so was our active shooter friend, who, based on his last sentence to us, I figured out was the brother of one of the two murdered men I confronted Box about. Knowing that, I needed both men to stay alive. I knew most of the pieces to my little puzzle—otherwise known as the Easy Chair Charlie Case—but it was all speculation. I needed to fill in the blanks with facts, corroborate my good detective reasoning with facts.
I had decided, as soon as the police told me that neither man was dead, that I would stay with these men like a parasite on a wet rat, until I had my chance to speak with them. I didn't know why they even had doors to the recovery room, because hospital staff was running back and forth with patients on hovergurneys nonstop. There were only a few other average-looking people in the waiting room besides me, but I was the only one sitting in the last row with my back touching the wall. I wanted no one behind me, and I wanted to eye everyone in front of me.
I was one person who could sit and wait forever, something the Guy Who Scratched My Vehicle and his lady found out the hard way. It was something I could do. I was a natural for stakeouts. That's what I considered it, because I needed to talk to those two men, and I felt...nervous. Sometimes, you had a premonition that something bad could be coming. That's what I was feeling, and I wasn't having any of it.
A head peeked out from the hallway into the waiting area, smiling at me. I gestured to the sidewalk johnny, and he came around with two of his friends.
"Hey, Cruz," the first one said. All of them in poncho-style slickers over their jeans and boots, and all looking like shaving was an off-and-on-again weekly routine.
"Hey," I answered.
"Phishy said to thank you for asking for his help. And we thank you too for giving us a gig."
"Yeah. Well, here's the job."
"Is it dangerous?" asked the other johnny. "I mean, you're a legit detective now."
"It's not dangerous at all."
"But...we're in a hospital."
"You watch too many movies. The job is simple. One of you will sit in the waiting room at the other end of the hall and watch the elevators for anyone suspicious coming my way, and the other will do the same at the other end of the hallway. The third man..."
"Will hang here with you," one of them interrupted.
"Will hang in the waiting area right next to the main elevators. Anyone suspicious coming my way, I want to know."
"You expecting suspicious people, Mr. Cruz?"
"Dangerous people, Mr. Cruz?"
"I have no idea what to expect. That's why I need you. Okay, that's the job. Go, get to your places."
"Yeah, that would be funny if a whole bunch of suspicious people came up here at the same time, while we're standing here talking about suspicious people."
The three sidewalk johnnies laughed.
"I can see why you're Phishy's friends. Okay, get to your places." I shooed them away, and two went one way and the third went the other way down the hallway.
They were gone, and I could see the three other people in the waiting area looking at me.
"You a detective?" a man asked.
"Yeah," I answered.
"You got a card."
"Yeah."
I had to remember that I was a businessman now, and that meant "good customer service." I got up, whipped a card from my jacket, and handed it to him.
The woman sitting next to him leaned to look at it, too.
"That's a cool name," she said. "Liquid Cool. You must have paid a whole bunch of money to get that name."
"I came up with it on my own, sitting in my office with several empty pads, a pen, and a few hours."
I was about to return to my seat when the other man in the waiting area reached out his hand for a card. I gave him one and returned to my spot.
With all my sitting and watching, I pieced together who among the hospital staff were in charge. The head nurse came out from the doors, and it was the one time she wasn't surrounded by other staff. I jumped up from my chair and ran after her.
"Excuse me," I said.
She stopped and turned.
"Is a Mr. Jim Box or Mr. Petrov Rexx able to see visitors?"
"Who are you?"
"Family."
"Of?"
"Mr. Box."
"Why are you asking about Petrov Rexx, then?"
"They were...shot at the same incident. I understand though. I'm sure they have an officer posted, which is why you're asking me the additional questions."
"Go to the nurses' station, and you can see Mr. Box, but as for Mr. Rexx, you need to take that up with the policeman."
"Thank you. Nurses' station?"
She pointed t
he way.
BOX LOOKED LIKE HELL. Laid up in the hospital bed with wires and electrodes attached to his head and chest, and an IV from his right arm. His eyes were half-closed, when I entered his room, and opened slightly more with a groggy expression.
"You told them you were family?" he asked.
"Of course," I said and sat down. "Here's your chance to return the favor by answering all my questions."
"You didn't take any bullets for me. What favor am I returning?"
"For calling the police and not leaving you to bleed out in your dark, dank, dungeon office."
"I bet someone else did that, and you're trying to take credit for it. You're a detective. Detectives lie."
"I got the guy who shot you," I said emphatically.
"I don't believe you."
"Chased him, shot him down, and he's lying one door down from you. So will you return that favor?"
"What's his name?"
"Petrov Rexx. Mr. Peri's brother."
"Christ, it was him?"
"You know him, then."
"He called me on the phone last week to tell me he was coming to kill me for getting his brother killed."
"Well, he almost did just that. So does that earn me a favor?"
"You have all the makings of a real low-life detective."
"Coming from the likes of you, I'm not sure how to take that. Peri worked for Ergot, and Mr. Ergot hired you to do what?"
"Why do you want to know? Why are you even involved in this? You're just a car guy."
"I was never a car guy. I was...I am a classic hovercar restorer."
"If you say so. Why are you involved in this? I don't understand you. Were you bored with life? You won't be bored anymore. And you probably won't be alive too much longer either, if you keep involved in all this."
"Involved in all what? What am I involved in?"
"Leave me alone. I'm not telling you nothing."
He turned his head away from me, lying on the bed, and closed his eyes. I knew he was done with me...unless I reset the situation.
Liquid Cool (Liquid Cool, Book 1) Page 19
