Patterns of Brutality: Erter & Dobbs Book 2
Page 27
FLOPPY
They entered Compton moving south from the 105. The scenery changed from nice little thousand square foot homes with manicured yards and well-kept visages to concrete yards and rod iron fences. Mexican and black blue-collars sat out on the curb next to work vans smoking cigarettes. Hitting East Twenty-sixth Street, they passed a run down housing facility with high-occupancy units crammed in, eight to a building, all laid out in rows. The place was busted up like a collection of soffits and rooflines smashed together at increasingly sagging angles. The doors were all close together and the grass was brown. Low hanging power lines etched the yards going from pole to pole. The place had probably been built in the fifties. It was all Section Six, low-income-housing now. Hoopties sat out on the curb.
Mark parked on the street next to a rod-iron security fence and said, “I know this place. Been here before. Watch what you say.” He got out scoping the area. He heard Nia’s door open, then close. She joined him at the fence.
A group of black dudes watched from one of the stoops, one of them getting to his feet with a dark look in his eyes. He wore a white wifebErter tee and pants slung low. He moved toward the fence followed by the others. Mark waited, sighing. There were half a dozen of them. He grumbled low, “This might get nasty.”
Homeboy stopped at the fence eyeballing him. He put his hands up to it wrapping his fingers through the bars. He said, “Yo, you that cop?”
“Come on, Darius, you remember me,” Mark said, flashing his badge.
“Told you before, we don’t allow no cops, man.”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Man—you mutha fuckas is trigger happy on us niggas.”
Mark gave him a confident smirk. “C’mon, D, everybody shoots everybody. You know that. Look, I need a favor, just this once. Can you do that?”
“I ain’t doing nothing for no cracker-ass pig.”
“Shareena Johnson,” Mark said. Darius’s eyes went curious, focused. “You know her? Little girl, about six. Lives in this building. Upstairs. You know who I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, I know her. I know her moms, too,” he said and sniggered devilishly. The dudes behind him joined in, chuckling low.
“Good, I want you to give her something,” Mark said. He went to his trunk, popped it, reached in and pulled out a stuffed puppy dog with large floppy ears. He went back to Darius. “I want you to deliver this to her. Promised her I’d bring it back. Belongs to her.”
“It’s a doll, man,” Darius said.
“She’s a little girl. Little girls like dolls.”
Darius’s deep eyes went back to Mark. “What I get?”
Mark smiled showing teeth. “My appreciation, D.”
Darius swiped a hand at him. “Man, please. I don’t give a shit about no appreciation bullshit.”
“Humility, then,” Mark said.
“Say what?”
“You get humility,” he said, “for knowing you did something good to help a cop make a little girl a little happy. It’s a good thing. What do you say, buddy?”
Darius started thinking, puckering his lips. His eyes glided over to Nia, looked her up and down. “Yo—who’s the piece?”
“She’s my partner,” Mark said still holding the stuffed puppy.
His eyes went back to Mark. “Why you here, cop?”
“Looking for somebody. Just have some questions. That’s it.”
“Who?”
“Dar’quann Dash. You know him?”
“Maybe.”
Mark made a congenial face. “C’mon, Darius, take the cute little girl her cute little puppy, and let us in.”
Darius looked at him skeptical. A moment passed.
“We’re coming in anyway, bro,” Mark said. “It’s up to you how. Let’s keep peace, man. We ain’t here for none of that other stuff.”
“Aiight,” Darius said. He pointed at Nia. “She can come in. You can’t.”
“No deal, brother,” Mark said.
“No,” Nia said. “It’s a deal.”
Mark looked at her growing angry, feeling his ears go hot. He paced to his car, then back looking at Darius with fire in his eyes. “Fine. She’s under your protection, though. Anything happens to her, and something’s going to happen to you.”
“Thought you was just here for questioning.”
“We are. So what?”
“Better be.”
Mark held up the doll and said, “And his name is Floppy.”
DASH
Mark pulled around to Dar’quann Dash’s door number. It was upstairs. He watched Nia move up the lawn, take the steel stairs up to an exterior walkway. She located the door and knocked, looking back.
Mark got out of his Camaro and stood there, leaning against the door, and watching through the wrought iron fence. He was ready to jerk his nine mil at the drop of a hat.
Upstairs, Nia heard someone call through the door, “Yeah.”
She stepped back and to the side. “Dar’quann,” she said, “this is the Los Angeles police. We have a few…”
BLAM BLAM!
Splinters flew. Nia dropped to a knee, gun in hand in a flash.
Mark hissed, “Awe, fuck!” and started over the fence.
Nia hammered the door open with a heel. A moment later the second floor window flew open and Dar’quann squirreled out. He pulled a foot up and started to drop down, but Mark yelled from the street, “There, there!”
Dar’quann looked back, saw him, had to adjust. He reached up, grabbed the roofline, and hoisted himself up.
“On the roof, on the roof!”
Nia scrambled inside, hurdled a laundry basket, went into the bedroom. The window was flung open. She went to it, looked down and called to Mark, “Take the car that way!” She motioned west.
She was too far for him to lend assistance. By the time he could have gotten up to the roof they’d be a world ahead of him. No choice. “Fuck!” He jumped into his Camaro, jammed it into gear and white smoked it down the street.
Nia hoisted herself out the window and up onto the roofline, and rolled to her feet in a single, catlike maneuver. Dar’quann was up ahead bounding over the roofs, moving fast. He was big, lean, very athletic, and he was armed. She took flight hitting the first decline like a runner sliding into home plate. Shingles flittered off the roof. Using her own momentum, she was up the next roofline hurdling the apex and thundering back downhill, toward a deep, narrow gap between the buildings. She didn’t hesitate, only launched herself across the way and onto the adjacent roof.
Up ahead, Dar’quann had created separation. He paused, to look back. He whipped his pistol around and popped off a few rounds at her.
Nia dropped down for cover, came back up. Her prey had altered course, moving toward the rear of the building. She scoped the area, absorbing the landscape, calculating Dar’quann’s easiest escape route. Down below was a large empty lot full of tall grass and garbage. A series of lean-to sheds were backed up against a fence, all aluminum and plywood. To the west was a fence line grown over with shrubs and bushes.
Dar’quann dropped down to the sheds. It collapsed underneath him depositing him roughly to the grassy yard. Back on his feet he hauled ass toward the street. Nia aimed her pistol, fired a few shots. Dirt exploded. He slid to a stop on his feet and turned around windmilling his arms and speeding off toward the fence line. She holstered and dropped down from the roof landing full bore on both feet. Hissing against the pain in both ankles she sprinted after him.
When she hit the tree line, she had to smash her way through the shrubbery, navigating over the fence and bursting through on the other side. Dar’quann was nowhere in sight.
“Dammit!” she sneered drawing her gun. To the left was a cinderblock structure with a steel door shut tight; to the right was the edge of the housing complex. Which way had he gone—through the door, or around the corner? “Dammit.”
She heard a whistle. It was a tiny sound, more like a whisper, very calm, collected
. She looked over across the parking lot. Darius sat on his stoop still holding Floppy the dog and looking back at her, cool as a cat. He pointed to the cinderblock building, to the door. She nodded to him, and, raising her pistol, she crept toward it.
“Goddammit,” Mark murmured coming to a stop in his car at the end of the street. He’d driven down two full blocks and there was no sign of his partner. He threw it in reverse and stomped on the pedal giving a seasoned power slide, rear tires screaming on pavement, sliding around, and jamming it into first gear. Popping the clutch, he was back on track, speeding down the street looking through the houses as he did. He came back out on Compton Street cranking the wheel to the south. He was back at the housing complex. Bumping up on the curb he slammed to a stop, got out, gun drawn, and moved toward the rear alley. If Nia was anywhere, she’d be there.
Nia reached a steady hand toward the door handle, gun up, ears probing. She wrenched the door open and stepped quickly away. It was dim. A basement. This was obviously the rear exit of a neighborhood bar. She inspected to the left, saw nothing, sidestepped to the other side, and inspected to the right. Still nothing, just shelves and supplies.
She chanced a step inside and met three concrete stairs. She moved in, led by her .45, listening in the dim, searching with her senses, ready to fire her weapon. Reaching back, she felt a bank of light switches. She swiped them all. Lights came on. Dar’quann leapt at her from behind. She spun too late. He bowled her over into a shelf crashing over trays of dry storage food and landing flat on her back. She felt her weapon slide across the concrete floor.
He was on top of her before she knew it, all panic and desperation. She slapped for her weapon, found it. Too late. He grabbed her wrist, smashed it into the ground, made her yelp. The gun reported loud as a cannon and slid away again.
Out on the street, Mark froze, terrified. A gunshot, a hundred feet away. He took off like a shot down the road.
Nia looked up. Dar’quann’s face was twisted up, more fear than hate, his jaw clenched showing a desperate snarl. His fist went up, came down hard. She juked her head left. Knuckles cracked on pavement. He screamed, pulled his fist back, took another shot at her. She juked her head right. More knuckles. More pavement. More screaming. He pulled back clutching his hand. She launched him off her with one powerful kick and he flew back into more shelving cradling a few jammed knuckles, maybe a sprained wrist. She threw herself over, snatched up her gun and had it poised for a kill shot sneering, “Do it, cowboy!”
Dar’quann froze, beaten, hands up.
The door kicked open from behind and Mark stepped in, gun poised. He jerked his pistol away assessing the situation immediately. Nia had everything under control. He met relieved eyes with her, gave her a nod.
Erter & Dobbs Book 3:
MORBID CURIOSITY
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Books in the Erter & Dobbs Thriller series
1. The Dead Bin
2. Visitation
3. Iva
4. The Dead Bin
5. Bernie Dobbs at Work
6. Chrissie Newton
7. William Erter at Work
8. Looking for Jacky
9. Captain Heller
10. Lesha Sanders-Maine
11. Carter
12. Starlight Reps, Inc.
13. Wise Donna’tella
14. Erter & Dobbs
15. Bernie Mounts a Rescue
16. The Dobbs Household
17. Neiman Gets the Case
18. Bernie Makes a Fine Point
19. Red Rocket Studios
20. Neiman & Dobbs
21. Autopsy
22. Introducing Ruthi
23. Date Night
24. Message from the Past
25. Bernie Gets the Message
26. Chrome Steel
27. Case Discussion
28. Evidence
29. Bernie on the Phone
30. The Real William Erter
31. William Wakes Up
32. Double Date
33. After
34. The F.B.I.
35. The Bust
36. Hospital Bed
37. Chasing Ghosts
38. Internal Workings
39. The Dobbs Residence
40. Comforting Arms
41. Game Time
42. Iva
43. Questions
44. Doubt
45. Oscar & Son
46. Roulette, Russian
47. Pattern of Brutality, Complete
48. Fallout
49. Broken Bond
50. After
About the Author
Book 3 Excerpt
Grave Situation
Oscar
New Recruit
Floppy
Dash