Brass in Pocket

by Jeff Mariotte

  Only when they had plenty of room and time to pull out of it, though.

  Benny had no room, no time.

  The plane shuddered violently and dropped, tail first. Started to flip over. Benny worked the flaps.

  Nothing helped. The plane hit the ground with a bang, crunching and folding like wet cardboard. Greg braced for an explosion that didn’t come.

  The plane deconstructed right in front of him, wings shearing off, fuselage compacting. The smell of gasoline was thick in the air, so an explosion might still be coming.

  He had to get Benny out before it did.

  Greg ran toward the airplane. Coming up behind him, he heard sirens, engines. His backup, airport safety personnel, maybe those paramedics he had called. He couldn’t spare the time to look back. A bloody hand poked out through a broken window, weak. Chunks of glass embedded in its flesh sparkled in the morning sun.

  Benny Kracsinski was still alive.

  With greater urgency, Greg dashed forward. His foot caught a wet patch of grass, slipped, and he went sprawling. Caught himself on hands and knees and pushed up again, his forward motion barely halted. He realized he had cut his left hand on a shard of twisted metal. Blood wet his palm. He took another step—

  —and then the plane blew.

  One instant it was still recognizable in its basic essence, and the next it was a fireball, ballooning out toward Greg, hurling a wall of knife-edged debris and a concussive blast that slammed into him like a pro linebacker, pinwheeling him backward. Heat swept over him, pinning him to the grass.

  Grass that reeked of gasoline.

  Greg rolled, scrambled. Flame ran toward him along a dozen paths, like self-generating roadways cutting through open country.

  He ran, slipped, steadied, and ran faster.

  Ahead of him vague forms gathered, their details blurred by the red film that had settled over his eyes. Cymbals clashed in his ears, drowning out all sound.

  Heat snaked up his left leg. He screamed—

  —and cold foam struck him, arctic slush chilling him to the core, but it cut the heat—

  —and pain consumed him, swallowing him whole, and as he dropped willingly into its giant maw, the world went black.

  29

  “THIS IS CSI Supervisor Willows, calling for backup.”

  “What’s your location, Supervisor Willows?”

  Catherine watched the front of the store from the street next to her SUV. All was still. Sunlight glinted off the big windows, blinding her to anything that might have been going on inside. “Select Stop Mart, on Eastern Avenue.”

  “I already have a unit on the way to that location,” the dispatcher reported.

  Catherine glanced up and down the street. Traffic was light, with no black-and-whites in view. “I don’t see any on approach. There is one car here already.” She read off the identification numbers on the back of Liz Tavrin’s car. “Why is another en route?”

  “It wasn’t an emergency call, but there’s a unit en route. They’re ten or fifteen minutes out.”

  Catherine tried to rein back her frustration. “Why, dispatch? Who called?”

  “Store security is what I show. A security guard caught a shoplifter. He’s detaining for arrest.”

  A shoplifter? Maybe someone with no cash, wearing bloody clothes? “Does it say what the suspect was after? Was it women’s clothing?”

  “I don’t have that information, I’m sorry.”

  “Well, see if they can get here faster. I’m going in.”

  “I have to advise you to wait for the unit, Supervisor.”

  “I have a uniformed officer on the scene already.” Catherine looked at Liz Tavrin. She hoped the lady knew her job. “And her partner might be inside the building. Just get that unit here as fast as you can.”

  Catherine was about to click off the radio when another thought occurred to her. “One more thing,” she said. “Did this call go out over the air?”

  “I didn’t know who was in the vicinity, so, yes, it was broadcast as a general bulletin. About thirty-five minutes ago.”

  “Thanks.”

  Catherine didn’t know a lot about Emil Blago, but according to his reputation he was an old school mobster, or wanted to be. Even a crime boss had to have goals, she supposed. Old school usually meant having police on the payroll. She still got a hard lump in her throat thinking about the murder of her friend Warrick Brown at the hands of a dirty undersheriff who had worked for gangster Lou Gedda. She liked to think better of her fellow officers of the law, but somehow when no one was looking, Las Vegas had turned into a very big city, complete with big city problems.

  One of those problems had always been an overabundance of corrupt cops.

  So, if Blago—or one of his gangland enemies—was after Antoinette, then broadcasting her whereabouts, however obliquely, might have been a bad idea. No telling who might have been listening in.

  Catherine had to hope that no one else had put together the pieces that she had—that Antoinette, badly in need of fresh clothes and with no money to pay for them, might have resorted to stealing from a store she probably wouldn’t have been caught dead shopping in.

  Catherine smiled at that. You didn’t have to be a CSI for long to see people caught dead in a lot of unexpected situations. There was a certain cleverness to Antoinette’s choice of stores, which Catherine supposed also applied to the choice of the Rancho Center Motel—both were places a man like Emil Blago would not expect to find his wife.

  “Come on,” she said to Tavrin. “We’re going in.”

  “In where?”

  Catherine ticked her head toward the store. “Select Stop Mart. Have you ever been in there?”

  “I’ve been in some of their locations, but not that one.”

  “That’s too bad.” She’d been hoping the cop knew the layout. Chances were good that they would go in, find the security guard who had detained Antoinette in a locked back room somewhere, and that would be that. Easy. Maybe Tavrin’s partner was already taking custody, and the store’s heavy walls and shelving had interfered with his radio. Then again, it might not even be Antoinette. They might walk in and find a terrified sixteen-year-old kid.

  You couldn’t count on easy when you were dealing with people like Blago. Catherine wished she knew more about what had gone on in that motel room. Had Antoinette been the target, or Deke? Was Antoinette still being pursued? As a witness, or as the original object of the hunt? Who wanted her dead, if the latter was the case?

  And where did Jim Brass fit in? That remained the biggest question mark about the whole affair.

  She and Tavrin trekked across the parking lot, ridiculously vast and mostly deserted at this early hour.

  Two of the few cars parked outside, both drawn up to the front of the store instead of back in the rows of painted slots, looked familiar.

  The first was a black Dodge sedan she recognized as the unmarked unit driven by Jim Brass.

  The other was a patrol car that she remembered was the one Officers Wolfson and Tuva drove. Now she knew the shoplifter was Antoinette, and there would be nothing easy about what was to come.

  She tried to swallow back her anxiety. She was a scientist, not a cop. But her duties included both—she had sworn to uphold and enforce the law in addition to investigating crimes, and if her usual tools included fingerprint brushes and test tubes instead of guns, she had to be competent with the latter in addition to the former.

  Today it might well be guns.

  “Draw your weapon,” Catherine said. Her tone was quiet but forceful. It was hard to get the mixture right—she wanted to sound calm, but any time you told someone to take out a firearm, you were also warning them that there might be shooting.

  The weight of her Glock 9mm should have been comforting, but instead it felt like she carried ten pounds of trouble.

  “What’s going on in there?” the officer asked her.

  “I’m not sure, but I have a feeling we’re walking in
to the middle of an unpleasant situation. I think we should try to clear the store and hope all the people with guns are somewhere in the back. No guarantees, though.”

  “Should we wait for backup?”

  “We can’t. Your partner might be in there. I know there’s a friend of mine in there, and maybe a woman in danger. You don’t have to go in, but I’d appreciate the assist.”

  “All due respect, Supervisor, but you bet your ass I’m coming.”

  “Good.”

  Before they could reach the sidewalk outside the door, the shooting began.

  Catherine heard the familiar crack and echo of gunfire, followed immediately by shrieks from within the store. The front double doors, glass and steel, burst open and people came running out. Store employees in matching canary yellow polo shirts and black pants were accompanied by a scattering of others, presumably customers. A young mother held on to the hands of two toddlers, trying to hurry them out of the way. A hulking bald guy with long whiskers wearing a leather vest, torn T-shirt, ragged jeans, and heavy black boots—Catherine guessed he belonged with the Harley parked a couple of spaces from the front of the lot—stormed through the doors with a frightened look on his face. An elderly Asian couple, clutching each other by the arm, somehow managed to walk with what seemed to be a casual gait but at a rapid pace.

  Catherine broke into a run as soon as she heard the shots, holding her badge out in one hand and her weapon by her side in the other. Liz Tavrin came behind her. Catherine picked one of the store employees, a thirty-something African-American woman who struck her as anxious but not panicked, and approached her.

  “LVPD!” she called. She moved right in front of the woman, so her badge would be seen, and stopped, blocking her way. “What’s going on inside?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman said, halting suddenly. “Someone’s shooting in there!”

  Shoppers and store staff streamed past them. The woman was obviously ready to move on, but Catherine grabbed her arm. “Did you see any police officers inside?”

  “Two or three went in. Not all together, but separately. That’s when the shooting started, when they went toward the back.”

  “Okay,” Catherine said. “Thank you. You’d better move on away from the windows.”

  The woman nodded and hurried away. Catherine looked toward the doors again, but they had gone still. She couldn’t see any movement from inside.

  “You still want to go in?” Liz asked.

  Clichés warred in Catherine’s head. Discretion is the better part of valor. Fortune favors the brave.

  Hell with it. Brass is in there, and Tavrin’s partner. Maybe Antoinette O’Brady. Caution dictated waiting for backup, but when lives were on the line, sometimes cops had to take chances.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “What are we standing around for, then?”

  I think I like this lady, Catherine thought. She gave Tavrin a grin and started for the doors.

  She approached the big plate-glass windows from the side, not wanting to present an easy target in case someone was inside drawing a bead on the doorway. Hanging her badge on her belt, she pressed one hand against the glass to cut the glare and peered into the store.

  She saw no movement at all. Lights burned in fixtures hanging from the high ceiling, and others glowed at cash register stations, indicating which lanes were open. Those were probably the first employees who had exited, though, since they had been so close to the doors when the shots rang out.

  Just as it struck Catherine that there had been no other shots, she heard two in quick succession. Muzzle flashes flared near the back of the store, briefly illuminating the far wall. There was no indication of backup on the way, but Catherine had to get inside just the same. She hurried to the door, moving at a crouch in hopes that the cash registers would block her from the view of anyone inside. Liz Tavrin followed suit.

  At the door, Catherine paused for the briefest instant, swallowing hard. Time to get it done. She raised her weapon, supported it with her free hand, and swung inside. Liz moved almost simultaneously, covering the lower half of their field of view while Catherine took the upper, tracking across the store, point to point. The faintest scent of disinfectant hung in the air; the floors had probably been mopped during the night.

  “Las Vegas Police Department!” Catherine shouted. “I need everyone in here to put down their weapons and move slowly toward the front, hands on your heads!”

  A shot rang out. Catherine and Liz both ducked, and one of the big windows took the bullet, cracking but not shattering.

  “This is your last warning!” Catherine called. “You’re shooting at a police officer!”

  “Catherine?” A familiar voice.

  “Jim?”

  “They don’t care, Cath! They are police officers!” Brass’s voice came from the left rear of the store, but she couldn’t pin it down more than that. She couldn’t ask him for his location because he might be hiding from someone.

  Not just someone, she was certain. Officers Wolfson and Tuva.

  She beckoned to Tavrin and the two of them hurried at a crouch to the nearest register lane. The heavy counter and machinery would help block any rounds from deeper in the store. But they couldn’t stay there for long. They had to keep moving, find out what was really going on.

  Like Tavrin, Catherine had been inside other Select Stop Mart locations. As far as she could tell from here, this one was laid out in a similar fashion to the others. Off to the right of the cashier lanes were sections of cleaning supplies, then pets, cosmetics, and health and first-aid supplies. Groceries started after that, wrapping around the corner. Across a wide aisle from those were cards and gifts, then linens, kitchenware, and small appliances. Directly across from the registers were women’s clothing and a small glass jewelry counter. Women’s clothes blended into children’s wear, then men’s, with shoes at the very back. Going left from the registers took one into office and school supplies and crafts, then around the corner into housewares, home improvement, and home furnishings. Beyond those, along the back wall, came toys, electronics, CDs and DVDs, and books.

  “How many are there, Jim?” Catherine called.

  He wouldn’t answer if doing so would put him in danger.

  “Three,” he said.

  A shot sounded, then a ricochet. Something smashed, back in Jim’s corner.

  “Jim?”

  “Fine,” he called.

  Something had been nagging at her, and she had just figured out what. Where was Antoinette? If the suspects had her, they would be using her as a hostage, trying to lure Jim into the open. If Brass had her, he would be trying to get her out of the store. As it was, it seemed like everyone had claimed a protected area and was essentially trapped there.

  “Backup will be here any second!” she called. She hoped, anyway. But the bad guys didn’t have to know that part.

  “A bus?”

  “Someone hurt?” Was that why Antoinette wasn’t a factor?

  “Cop got shot in back. And a security guard.”

  “Dave?” Tavrin asked.

  Oh, no, Catherine thought. Tavrin tensed up, her eyes saucering. Catherine knew what she would do possibly before she did. “Tavrin, don’t!”

  She was too late. Tavrin darted out from the protection of the cash register and darted toward the back of the store, weapon out to fire, as if she could get off a decent shot at a full sprint. “Dave!” she screamed.

  Her voice echoed through the empty space. Her boots thundered on the linoleum floor.

  The gunshots that cut her down were louder still.

  Catherine watched for muzzle flashes, light blooming in the store’s center right, and she squeezed off two shots in that direction. Brass did the same.

  A spray of blood burst from Liz Tavrin’s left shoulder. The round caught her in midstride, spinning her so the blood arced around her as she fell.

  Catherine ducked back behind the register and used her radio
to call for paramedics. Dispatch assured her that backup was less than five minutes out, and that multiple units were responding. Not wanting them to sound off and give her position away, she switched off her radio and her cell phone. Once that was taken care of, she had to get Tompkins out of the line of fire. Then she had to reach Brass, needed to find out what the score was. Catherine felt like she was stumbling in the darkness. Dangerous enough under ordinary circumstances, far worse when bullets were flying.

  You’re a scientist, Willows, she reminded herself. You’re not a street cop. Wait for backup.

  The world outside had gone silent, though. No sirens wailed in the distance. It was as if the store had been cut off from everything, untethered from the earth and floating alone in the vacuum of space.

  No, she couldn’t wait. With Tavrin down, Catherine and Brass were on their own.

  30

  “LIZ,” CATHERINE CALLED, remembering Officer Tavrin’s first name. “Can you move?”

  The downed cop groaned and shifted position on the floor. She pressed her right hand against the wound on her shoulder. “Not much,” she said.

  “I’m coming,” Catherine promised. “Jim, give me cover!”

  She started toward the fallen officer. Jim waited until she had covered about half the distance, then fired three shots in the direction from which the last muzzle flashes had come, spaced well apart. They kept the bad guys, who she still believed were Officers Wolfson and Tuva, pinned down long enough for her to get to Tavrin. Moving her might be rough on the officer, but it would be better than getting shot again.

  She looped an arm around Tavrin’s shoulders and hoisted her up. The officer shrieked in pain and tears sprang from her eyes as Catherine half-dragged her, aided by the slick linoleum, back to relative safety between two of the cashier stands. “Stay put,” she urged. “Help’s on the way.”

  Tavrin grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Thanks,” she whispered between clenched teeth.

  Catherine nodded once, then abandoned her there. She went back around to the front of the register stands and moved at a low crouch as far left as she could. From there she headed for the far wall, racing past aisles of pens and markers and envelopes, paper and poster boards and scrapbooking supplies. At the corner she passed through housewares and into home improvement. So far, no one had shot at her.