June squirmed off him. She dug into her pocket for the plastic ties she got from Georgie and zip tied Clinton’s wrists and ankles, using two at each place. She ripped the rubber mask from his head, and didn’t recognize him either.
From being punched in the face so hard, blood was welling up from both his nostrils and overflowed his cheeks. She knew if she left him on his back, he could easily choke to death on his own blood. Gagging him would risk suffocation. She would have to turn him on his side to allow the welling blood to flow away from his airway. It was emergency medicine at its most basic, to keep his airway open. But that would require compassion.
Instead, June dug through his pockets. All she found was a cell phone and a pocketknife. She gave the knife a stare, and looked at Clinton.
“Not worth it…” she mumbled.
She cut her own thick plastic ties with the knife, releasing her left arm and both legs from their prisons, working her joints loose again and some blood into her limbs.
Clinton’s breathing sputtered through his blood.
“Looks like I’m still the one making the decisions around here, huh?” she muttered.
She turned him onto his side, allowing the blood to flow away from his nose and mouth onto her bedding. It was her bed he was on, and one of her favorite spreads. That could be easily replaced; her freedom couldn’t. His breathing improved to a soft snore as blood soaked into the bedspread.
June was down to only one intruder, an ex-con with a loaded gun and a bad case of frayed nerves. She knew it would take more than détente to deal with Ronald Reagan.
CHAPTER SIX
She listened at the door and heard only the TV playing. Reagan should still be on the couch watching TV, facing away from the bedroom door. It would be easy enough to walk out the door, aim Clinton’s gun at the man’s back, and pull the trigger. She wouldn’t have to be an expert shot to accomplish that, and the girls wouldn’t be in the way. As soon as that was done, she could call the police and be done with the ordeal. Surely, no one could blame her for defending herself and the girls with a gun one of the intruders had brought.
Did she have more courage than to shoot a man in the back?
The pistol was still on the floor where it landed during the fight. Giving its use one last consideration, June picked up the pistol, feeling the weight of it in her hand. She turned it from side to side, inspecting it closely. She watched her finger pull the trigger, heard the loud crack, a splat of pink mist as the bullet hit its mark at the base of his neck, Reagan’s instantly limp body slumping forward. She made her decision.
As serious as the situation was, she couldn’t bring herself to shoot a man in the back. She removed the clip and looked. It too was empty, just like George’s, and she could only assume they were unloaded to prevent a major crime from being committed in the heat of the moment. She dropped the gun to the floor and gave it a kick it under the bed.
She took several calming breaths while rubbing the raw spots on her wrists. Not that those breaths were particularly calming. Two men were down and out, hopefully remaining out and thoroughly tied. But there was still one more to go.
And two hungry, scared nieces only steps away.
There was no phone in the bedroom, and her smart phone was in Reagan’s hand the last she saw. With Clinton’s phone, she could call 9-1-1 for the police, but risked being overheard by Ronald in the other room. She had no door to the outside, only a window to shinny out. But she wouldn’t abandon the kids in the other bedroom.
If she went out and crept to their window, they would make too much fuss when they saw her peek in the window. There was no way she could get them out of the house without being heard.
She had to hurry with some sort of plan. With no better idea of what to do, June took Clinton’s phone to the bathroom. She opened it, and dialed those three numbers that have been so troublesome for her in the past. Ignoring the emergency operator when she came on, she wrapped the phone in a towel and set it in the tub, closing the door behind her as she left.
She figured the operator would stay on the phone for at least a couple minutes, talking louder and louder. The towel and closed door would have to be enough to drown out whatever noise the 9-1-1 operator would make, or a ringing call back. Maybe, just maybe, there was a GPS chip in the phone to locate its where-abouts, and police would eventually be sent to her home to check on the call.
She went to the door and listened again without opening it. The TV was still playing, only now a game show of some sort. June wondered what sort of weapon she could use against a man with a loaded gun. She still had the pocketknife she got from Clinton’s pocket. Small and flimsy, it wasn’t much of a fighting weapon.
She went to the nightstand and slid open the drawer. There was nothing inside but a romance paperback, a nail file, and antacid. She had nothing else in the bedroom to use as a weapon.
Her only other option was to get to the baseball bat from next to the front door and use it on the man before he knew what was happening. Thinking of the area she would have to cover to get to it, she would be exposed to him for several steps before she could even get to the bat, let alone attack him with it before getting shot. He had already fired off one shot, so she had to assume the gun was fully loaded, unlike the others.
She would have to use her mind. That would have to be her best weapon.
That’s when it hit her, what Reagan had said a couple times about not going back to prison for doing something stupid. No bullets were in either of his partner’s guns, only so murder couldn’t impulsively be committed. If she was lucky, Reagan might have done the same with his, putting only one bullet in for show.
But she couldn’t count on it.
She opened the door and walked out.
“Hey, there you are! Have a good time with that…” He looked over the back of the couch. He had removed the rubber Ronald Reagan mask from his head. Their eyes met; he looked startled it was her and not his partner. She didn’t recognize him either.
“I doubt he had much fun,” she said to him.
He was immediately up on his feet, his gun rising. June froze in her tracks, not sure of what to do.
“What’d you do to him?”
“He wasn’t my type.”
“You killed him?”
“He’s taking a nap.”
They stared at each other. His gun hand began to shake. She struggled to control her nerves, waiting for the gun to fire. When it didn’t, she took another step.
“How many strikes do you have against you, Reagan? Would shooting me be your third strike? Is that why you’re hesitating?”
His face twisted into a frown, turning red. When his face went dark, he looked like somebody that belonged in a mental institution rather than prison. With no other option, that was the game she would have to play with him. She had to shake him to the point of making a mistake. It was all she had.
A banging sound came from outside in the garden.
“What’s that?” he asked, glancing quickly toward the back of the house.
It had to be Georgie in the shed, now awake, trying to draw attention to his plight. She shrugged.
“Where’s Donny?” he asked.
“Oh, so that’s his real name. He’s taking a nap out in the shed.” She took another hesitant step toward him. From the side of her eye she could see the baseball bat next to the front door. Too far away. “We’re all alone now. Just you against me.”
“You should stand still,” he told her. “I’m the one with the gun.”
“And you should set that gun down before you get hurt,” she said back.
The guest bedroom door creaked open, the movement catching her eye.
“Auntie,” said a tiny voice. “What’s…”
“Koemi, go back inside and close the door,” June said steadily.
“But…”
“I said go back inside!” June could barely keep from screaming at her nieces, but kept her gaze on the man in front of h
er.
After she heard the door close, she took another step forward, followed by another to close the gap between them.
Reagan’s gun hand wavered a bit as he wiped sweat from his brow. “Stand still.”
“Your partners weren’t packing ammunition. In their guns I mean. What’s up with that?”
“Those two Bozo’s with live ammo?” he asked. “I don’t think so. I ain’t goin’ to prison for murder, just because they might do something stupid.”
“You’re going back to prison anyway. Right after a trip to the hospital.” June took another step. She was almost to the side of the couch. She had angled toward him and away from the bat, forsaking its potential use. She also had him trapped between the couch and the coffee table. “You’ve been there before, haven’t you?”
“You seriously think I won’t shoot you?”
“I thought you weren’t going to prison for doing something stupid?”
“Don’t push your luck, missy.”
“Don’t call me missy. If you were a real man you’d beat the crap out of me.” She smiled, surprising herself that one formed on her face. At least she thought it was a smile and not nausea.
He grinned for only a moment, and then releveled his gun at her chest.
“You are a man, right? Because those other two…well, I checked and there wasn’t much there, really. But a big, smart guy like you wouldn’t be so deficient, right?”
She took one last step, then only two steps away from him. She couldn’t risk any more. She stood still, her eyes locked onto his face, his gun pointed at her chest.
“So, are you a man or not?”
“You wanna come check?”
“Only if you promise to pull my hair and pinch my butt.”
He grinned. His gun hand relaxed ever so slightly and lowered a bit.
That was her chance, the opening she needed, exactly what she had been angling for. Bullets or not, she had to do something.
She swung her open hand at the gun. He was quick with it, but she caught just enough for the gun to drop to the floor.
He looked at her surprised, but fell to the floor for the gun. She dropped right after him, having guessed wrong about the gun being empty. He went after the gun because it was still loaded.
In the small space between the heavy coffee table and the couch, they fought feverishly for the gun. Back and forth it went from one set of fingertips to the other, until it finally ended up in his grasp.
A shot rang out in the house, and wall plaster shattered. They wrestled more. It was his body weight against her training. She had to be better at ground grappling than he was at gunplay.
June splayed her legs out and hooked an ankle around a coffee table leg so she couldn’t be flipped. She got an arm around his neck, using his armpit as a grip and pulled back, stretching his spine backwards. Her other hand still tried to get control of the gun. Or at least her finger through the pistol guard so it couldn’t be fired. Anything to keep the muzzle pointed away.
“Get off me, bitch,” he grunted as June pulled back on his neck.
As their hands frantically fought for the gun, he gave her an elbow to the jaw. Seeing stars for a moment was nothing new to her during a fight, and she grunted through the sharp but temporary pain. Unable to see the gun then, she pulled back on his neck even harder, trying to keep the gun aimed away from her.
Another shot rang out, followed by a jolt of pain in her ribs.
June almost let go. But she had to hang on. She had nieces to protect. She was so close to winning the fight.
June saw something she could do. The man’s arm was almost straight at the elbow. If she could lock it straight, she could turn his arm and force pain down the length of it. It was a struggle, but she got his elbow straight and locked, and began twisting. Arching her back as much as she could with the pain of a gunshot wound to her rib cage, she pulled hard.
“Give it up, prick…” she said into his ear.
The man groaned and the gun fell from his hand.
Just as she couldn’t hold him any longer, he elbowed her ribs and broke loose.
Before he could get to his pistol, June kicked it under the couch. They were now even in weaponry, but she was fighting injured.
She had no idea how bad her injury was. So far, it was only searing pain, and she could still take deep breaths. Wherever the bullet went, it hadn’t gone through her lungs, and maybe didn’t even penetrate her chest at all.
She couldn’t look. She had a desperate ex-con in front of her, and she needed to do something with him. She got both fists up and prepared to throw a cross.
Instead, he dropped to the floor to grab for the gun. It was a mistake, and she took full advantage of his sudden vulnerability. Raising one fist over her head, she sent a hammer strike to the back of his neck. He collapsed flat on the floor, but she kept with the hammer strikes, one after another, his neck, his head, his back, his neck again, until all that happened was his body bounced on the hardwood floor.
She stopped and stood upright, looking down at him. He didn’t move.
June arched her back, trying to ease some of the muscles, but there was a massive spasm in her chest wall, bending her sideways, her body protecting the injury. She lifted her shirt and looked at her wound.
The bullet had plowed a deep furrow through her flesh just below her bra, running right over a rib. She knew then the bullet hadn’t entered her body but had skipped off the rib and continued on past her. She had been lucky she was only deeply grazed. It didn’t mean she wasn’t in pain though.
One of the girls called from inside the guest room. “Auntie, can we come out?”
“Not yet, honey,” she called out. She still felt frantic over the scene in her home, strange men unconscious, her chest bleeding, the girls wanting out of the room. It took more effort than what she realized to talk after being shot. Panting for air barely helped. “Be good girls for auntie and stay in there. I’ll come get you in just a minute.”
She pulled her torn and blood soaked shirt back down.
June went around to the man’s head, grabbed a hold of his collar and dragged him into the middle of the floor. She had one last plastic tie in her pocket and used it on his wrists behind his back. She felt for a pulse at his neck and found one, then listened to his breathing. It was good enough as far as she was concerned. Alive anyway. Just as she was picking up her phone to dial 9-1-1 for the police again, she heard sirens outside the house. Her earlier anonymous call in the bathroom had worked.
She opened the front door to see a black and white patrol car angle parked at the curb. The cop got out, stayed behind his door, his pistol in his hand.
“It’s alright now. Just bring lots of handcuffs.” She got another spasm in her ribs and had to lean against the doorjamb to stay upright. “And an ambulance would be good.”
June turned around and tried taking a deep breath. She heard a new round of crying in the bedroom and couldn’t put off her nieces any longer. Walking to the guest bedroom, her phone rang with her sister’s new number.
“Having fun?” Amy asked when June answered the call.
“Something like that.” June had no idea of what to say when she pushed the bedroom door open, either to the kids or to her sister. But they ran to her, pressing their faces into her body to hide their tears. With her free arm, she hugged them close to her. “But something has come up. Maybe you should come pick up the kids. It seems I’m not such a good babysitter after all.”
THE END
You can find out more about June Kato and the author’s other works at:
http://www.junekatointrigue.com/
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Ratio: A Leopold Blake Thriller (A Private Investigator Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers) Page 28
