Stella, Get Your Gun

by Nancy Bartholomew

“Sure,” she said. She looked at me. “Who shot him?”

  I didn’t know her; therefore she didn’t know me. I gave her a frightened, shocked stare and gasped. “I don’t know. We were taking a walk around the block and this car drove by. It was full of kids. I heard a sound like pop! and…”

  Bucket interrupted. “Gina, can we do this later? I don’t wanna lose him, all right? Let’s get to Louie’s.”

  Officer Gina nodded. “I’ll be back and we’ll get a full report,” she said. She was heading for her car to radio in as she spoke. I had been dismissed in favor of running lights and sirens across town.

  “Who is Louie?” I said, thinking if he was Paint Bucket’s uncle he couldn’t be a legit anything other than maybe a bartender.

  But Paint Bucket was busy attaching pads to Lloyd’s chest while Weasel went to the back of the ambulance and pulled out a stretcher.

  Once again I’d landed in the twilight zone of my old hometown, where dogs are treated like humans and some humans are treated like dogs. I was on the positive end of the spectrum tonight, and Lloyd was one very lucky canine. As I watched Paint Bucket and Weasel work, I began to realize that I didn’t have to know who Louie was or wonder if Lloyd would be in good hands. My old friends had issues, certainly, but when it came to their work, they were pros and Lloyd and I were very lucky.

  “Uncle Louie says transport 10-39,” Bucket barked.

  The cop steadied the gurney. Weasel climbed into the back seat of Aunt Lucy’s car, and Bucket leaned across to meet him. Like a father lifting his sleeping infant, Bucket reached under Lloyd’s pain-racked body, gently pulling him up into his arms as Weasel supported Lloyd’s head and shoulders.

  They moved quickly then, carefully placing Lloyd on the stretcher, strapping him in and then bolting for the back of the waiting ambulance.

  The cop stood beside her car, blue lights flashing and radio squawking as Weasel and Bucket closed the rear doors.

  Bucket had just waved the okay to the waiting cop and was turning to open the driver’s side door when their walkies exploded into a series of long tones. Everyone froze, listening as the communicator’s voice began to give the call.

  “All units, West Bradford Avenue and Carter. Please respond to a 10-32. Shots fired at 2230 West Bradford Avenue. EMS-1, please start your unit toward that area, as well, but don’t attempt to enter the building. Stand by until the scene is signal 50.”

  Weasel keyed his mike. “EMS-1 en route to deliver a patient to 114 Sheeler. We’ll proceed from there.”

  “EMS-1, 10-4.”

  The young cop was gone, spinning out of Uncle Louie’s driveway and into the road with lights flashing. As she pulled onto Lancaster Avenue, I heard her start the siren. This was a big-shit call. Shots fired in Glenn Ford—now, how often did that happen?

  Weasel and Paint Bucket were already inside the ambulance and starting to back down the driveway when I called after them.

  “What’s up?”

  “Something at St. Anthony’s Lodge,” Bucket called. “Don’t worry. They’re still shooting it out over there. We’ve got time to get Lloyd to Weasel’s uncle.”

  It took less than a second for their words to register. Nina was wrestling at the lodge. Spike was there with her. Who’d been shot?

  The ambulance roared off out of the driveway, and I turned back to see Aunt Lucy and Jake hastily conferring.

  “Take my car. It’s the last in the driveway. Go see about your cousin,” Aunt Lucy said. Her face was so pale it scared me.

  “How do you know she’s—”

  Aunt Lucy interrupted. “The house is wired for sound, honey. I heard every word you said. I just couldn’t answer you. I was tied up.”

  I nodded, knowing there was no time for explanations, and ran for the car. As I passed Jake, I grabbed his arm. “Take care of her,” I said. “She shouldn’t be dealing with all of this.”

  Jake nodded, his expression unreadable, and turned to my aunt. “Let’s get you something to drink,” I heard him say. “How about a cup of tea?”

  I rolled down the driveway and started toward the social club. I spent the next ten minutes weaving in and out of blocked streets and alleyways, trying to get close to St. Anthony’s and finding every access blocked by police or volunteer firefighters.

  Finally I spotted Paint Bucket and Weasel’s ambulance and pulled up behind it. They’d come to a dead halt on Bradford Avenue. Before us lay an undulating sea of moving light bars, and beyond that stood barricades and uniformed officers.

  “Holy shit!” I muttered under my breath. I jumped out of the Buick, disregarding a young patrol officer who scowled and started moving toward me. When I reached the ambulance, he backed off and watched.

  “Yeah, that’s right, sport, I’m a doctor,” I muttered under my breath.

  Paint Bucket and Weasel were out of the vehicle, being briefed.

  “I’ll let you in after we’re sure it’s clear,” a plainclothes officer was saying. “We know there’s at least one victim, but who can tell? The word is, when he pulled out his gun and announced he was robbing the place, every goomba in town started shooting. What kind of idiot would rob St. Anthony’s?”

  I looked toward the club. Maybe the guy had a death wish. Maybe he wasn’t Italian. Maybe he didn’t know the code name for an Italian social club, and maybe he didn’t know we take care of our own, connected or not.

  “So he’s dead?” Weasel asked.

  The officer shook his head. “No, it’s a fuckin’ nightmare. He grabbed some woman like a shield and now he’s got hostages.”

  Bucket looked back and saw me. He crossed the short distance between us, frowning.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I nodded toward the lodge. “Nina and Spike are in there,” I answered.

  “Oh, man!”

  Weasel was still asking the cop questions. “So, you got people in there yet? What’re you doing, sending in doughnuts? Did you send in a cell phone? What?”

  The cop shrugged. “Hey, we’re a small department. We called the SBI. I got a guy trying to get the idiot on the phone, but so far he’s refusing.”

  “Sharpshooters,” Weasel said. “You got sharpshooters on him?”

  The cop gestured toward the lodge. “You see a shot, Weasel? All’s I got are concrete walls and people. Ain’t no shot in there.”

  That was all I needed to hear. They didn’t have jack for help, and the clock was ticking. I walked back to the Camaro, felt under the driver’s seat for my Glock and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans. I reached again and brought out my ankle holster, my Lady Smith .38 revolver and a Spyderco knife, vicious with a serrated double-sided blade made for sawing through seat belts and bone.

  The young cop who’d been waiting to chew my ass about parking behind emergency vehicles saw his opportunity and moved.

  “Ma’am,” he started, “you need to move your vehicle.”

  I stared at him. Hard. “Go screw yourself, junior. I’m a cop and you’re a Twinkie.”

  His face reddened right up to the top of his bottle-brush haircut. His right hand inched toward the buckle on his holster.

  “Why I oughta…”

  “What, cupcake, you think you can take me?”

  He started for me and I turned my back, but I was ready if he had the balls to make the move.

  Bucket saved us both.

  “Yo, Freddie!” he cried. “Wait! Don’t you know who that is?”

  I looked back over my shoulder and saw the young recruit stop, momentarily thrown by Paint Bucket’s question. He looked at me, then back at Paint Bucket.

  “I can’t believe you don’t recognize her,” Bucket continued. “Picture her in uniform, with them chromium, double-striped bars.”

  Freddie got that deer-in-the-headlights stare that all new recruits get when they haven’t yet memorized the command staff pictures. He gulped.

  “Oh, yeah! Sorry, Captain, ma’am. I didn’t know it was you!”


  I gave him a curt nod. “Just see it doesn’t happen again,” I said sternly. I winked at Bucket, spun on my heel and started walking the perimeter.

  I hadn’t gone ten yards when I heard footsteps pounding up behind me. Freddie, the recruit, was back.

  I stopped, waited for him to catch up and raised one skeptical eyebrow. “Officer?”

  Freddie, red-faced and out of breath, brought himself up short. “Ma’am, I was just coming along to assist you with…” He stopped, maybe noting the look on my face or the Glock in my waistband. “Well, you know, with whatever you may need assisting with, maybe, but not like you really would or nothin’.”

  I almost bit his head off before realizing that it would be a lot easier to go behind the yellow crime-scene tape if it looked as if I had an official capacity. Freddie, being uniformed, was my ticket to go wherever I wanted. It was brilliant.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I tried to relax my face into an expression that would frighten the young guy less, but that seemed impossible. He stuttered and stumbled along behind me. He’d dash ahead whenever he saw an obstacle in my path and make such a fuss over its removal that I usually passed by unnoticed. Freddie was a great diversion. Everybody was too busy watching him trip and bumble to worry about me.

  I slowly cased St. Anthony’s Lodge. The front entrance was covered over with cops, all waiting for direction. I studied the long, concrete-walled sides of the rectangular building. An alleyway led down either side of the club, back to the parking lot and the service entrance to the building.

  “Freddie,” I asked, “is it just one shooter, or do they think there’s more?”

  Freddie, too new to realize a captain would know this information long before a street-level officer, puffed out his chest importantly.

  “They’re thinking two guys, at least,” he answered.

  Okay, two, maybe more. I eyed the building and tried to think like a moron, because only a moron would rob an Italian social club in full swing. If it was just me, I’d take a hostage and try to work my way out of the building. I’d go out through the kitchen and hope to boost a car, or have one already in place. If I pulled the job with another guy, it would likely be the same plan, only there’d be backup.

  I walked down the alleyway, noting the roof of the building next to the club. No sharpshooters. The SBI would send a team, but until then the place was wide open. I kept on going, walking as if I belonged on-site, nodding now and then to Freddie or any other officer who made eye contact.

  I spotted two cops in the back lot, positioned behind parked cars, just waiting for the order to storm the back entrance. I knew they were itching to throw in tear gas or any number of evil and deadly tactical grenades they’d been trained to use. Trouble with that was, they’d never been on a live scene before, never had to face the consequences when a good move went way wrong. I had. I’d seen it, done it and thanked my lucky stars for the number of near misses we’d had on the Garden Beach Special Response Team. Glenn Ford was too small to have done much more than watch training films.

  I studied the back entrance for a full three minutes, noting the absence of a lookout. The door led into the commercial kitchen and was propped open by a metal milk crate. At the sound of the first gunshot, I imagined every employee had fled through that door to the relative freedom of the parking lot.

  I looked back at the two cops in the lot. I figured they’d been instructed to wait for the SBI backup to arrive before moving forward and possibly getting themselves and the hostages killed. I applauded the wiser head behind that order. It was good work on somebody’s part to recognize what they couldn’t handle and wait for help.

  I kept watching the kitchen door. Nina and Spike might not have the kind of time it took for a SWAT team to mobilize and respond. I knew what to do and I knew how to do it. The first step was to lose Freddie the Cop.

  I shrugged out of my sweat jacket, tossed it to the boy and said, “I’ll be right back. Cover the back door from here, and tell those other guys I said to stay put. Got it?”

  I didn’t listen to the stammered protest. I was off, sprinting toward the kitchen. I took the three steps up to the back door in one leap, then slipped into place beside the entrance. I pulled the Glock and took my first fast peek into the kitchen. Empty, just as I’d thought.

  I eased through the door, ducked sideways into an open pantry and waited for my heart rate to slow down. The adrenaline was surging through my body. I was aware of nothing other than the task before me. Take out the obstacles. Get Nina and Spike to safety. Everything else was irrelevant.

  I looked at the open metal shelving, scanning the bottles of olive oil and the cans of tomatoes and vegetables before I found what I wanted. A green apron with St. Anthony’s neatly embroidered in raised white letters lay on the bottom shelf. Bingo.

  I tied the apron around my waist. My heart was still pounding hard against my rib cage, but to my mind, the rush only made me sharper, more alert. I liked to think that with that much excess energy flowing, I had superpowers. My vision and hearing were more acute. My response time was faster. I was strong, and because my cousin was in danger, I was fearless.

  I slipped out of the pantry and moved toward the swinging doors that led into the main body of the social club. I stopped just short of the doorway and listened.

  “Bastard,” I heard one man mutter. “Just let me get a clear shot and he’s mine.” A woman sobbed, deep, shuddering cries that served as a muffled backdrop to other voices, all muted. The threat was very real.

  I eased up to the door and pushed gently. It opened just a crack so I could look out into the room and try to get a feel for the layout and location of the gunman. I reached back, pulled out my gun and shoved it deep inside my apron pocket.

  I pushed the door another two inches, trying to get a good look at the room.

  I froze, feeling stale, hot breath on my neck and a cold ring of steel against my side.

  “Don’t fucking move!”

  The man behind me reached up, snatched my hair in one hand and pushed me forward against the swinging door, shoving so hard that my face slammed into the wooden panels and tears sprang to my eyes.

  So much for sneaking up on the situation. Where the hell had he come from?

  “Ouch!” I cried. “Let me go!”

  With another jerk, he brought my head up and pulled me back against his thick chest. I saw the people lined against the far wall, held at bay by a second gunman.

  “Look, Stan,” my captor cried, “Is this not one of them, too?”

  His accent caught my attention. He spoke in thick, guttural syllables that quickly identified him as a foreigner, perhaps central European. I wasn’t an expert on foreign language.

  I didn’t move. I let my body respond the way it wanted, with quivers and tears and any accessory I could release to make me look like frightened kitchen help. It wasn’t hard to look scared. Straight ahead, maybe twenty feet away, stood a small blond man. In front of him stood my cousin, coated in chocolate pudding except for the tear streaks that ran unchecked down her face.

  The little man held an ugly black military knife to Nina’s throat. A thin trickle of blood ran down her neck and across her captor’s hand. She looked terrified. Ten feet off to the man’s side, at the edge of the crowd, stood Spike, her eyes riveted on Nina’s face, her own expression tortured as she watched her lover being held hostage.

  “Well,” Nina’s captor said, “I think she is looking familiar. Good. Now anybody tries the monkey business, they lose.” He turned his attention to me. “What is your name, please?”

  I swallowed the bile that rose up in my throat. “Margie,” I lied.

  “I believe that is not true,” he said calmly.

  I stared at the little man, puzzled.

  “Do I know you?”

  The man behind me tightened his grip around my neck. He smelled of alcohol and cigarettes. I wanted to gag but instead forced myself to look out at the room in
front of me. I figured there were close to one hundred people in the room, mainly men, and they all looked homicidal.

  As I studied the group, I noticed five men who stuck out because there wasn’t a glimmer of fear in their eyes. They weren’t scared; they were angry. They stood, positioned defensively, around an older man with white hair. Tony Manello. Tony wasn’t scared, either, in fact, he seemed to be giving Nina’s captor a silent promise. Tony Manello had issued a death sentence, and all that stood between him or his men and Stan the gunman’s demise was opportunity.

  It was a very volatile situation and the only thing keeping our captors alive was the fact that each man held a female hostage. If anyone figured they had a shot, and I prayed they didn’t, the place would erupt like a volcano.

  “What do you want with us?” I asked.

  Nina’s head whipped forward and her eyes widened. The good news was she was still with it enough to know better than to cry out.

  “Keep your gun on her,” Stan instructed. He glared at me, motioning with his head toward the bar behind him. “Come pour me a shot of Stoli. Perhaps we talk.”

  I nodded, looking for all the world like a shaken schoolgirl. “Is that vodka?” I asked innocently.

  Stan ran the tip of his knife blade down Nina’s neck, and a thin trickle of blood appeared. My captor’s grip loosened. With a shrug I was free and running toward the bar. No more questions. These men weren’t playing.

  I had a plan, but working it and keeping the three of us alive was going to take some doing. I studied my main target. On any given day, with one arm strapped to my side, I could’ve beaten him. He’d only evened up the odds by taking Nina hostage.

  He was bony, with a paunch that was only half-hidden by Nina’s slim body. He looked to be in his midfifties with pale watery eyes and pasty white skin. He was dressed in khaki pants, a plaid shirt and low-cut boots. What was he doing here? Surely he hadn’t come to rob the club? He had to be an outsider to risk robbing a known Mafia hangout. What a fool.

  I stepped closer, noticed the tremor in his hands and prayed he didn’t slip and slit Nina’s throat.

  “Straight up?” I asked. “Or on the rocks?”