The Midtown Murderer

by David Carlisle

  A dozen gangsters, working at various stations, were manufacturing meth. Two walls were stacked with fifty-gallon drums of red phosphorous acid. Hundreds of cases of decongestants of every brand were stacked along another wall. Two men at counters were operating industrial blenders and grinding the tablets into powder. Off to one side, a mini forklift sat idle next to wooden pallets full of compressed-gas cylinders.

  A huge, crazy-looking man wearing a red flannel shirt, untucked and unbuttoned, was seated at a metal table stacked with piles of cash. He was bald and had more tattoos than a carnival-ride operator. He sucked up several lines of white powder with a rolled bill, stood, and waved a rifle. “Goddamn, don’t be quittin’ on me,” he screamed at one of the goons. “And don’t do it half-assed!”

  Several dogs barked at the commotion. The man pounded his fist on the wall. That silenced the animals.

  “Triple?” Trent asked.

  “Yeah.” Radcliff’s voice hardened. “Him and his drugged-out freak show.”

  “That’s got to be the super meth lab the police have been searching for.”

  Chapter 59

  Radcliff tugged on Trent’s shirt and eased him back into the dark. “Sherlock,” he said, “it ain’t the CVC pharmacy. Those fifty-gallon drums are extremely volatile acid.” He pointed at the industrial stoves lining the far wall where several men were adding drain cleaner and the decongestant power to steaming pressure cookers. “The slightest mistake in temperature, or capping those pressure cookers too tightly will cause them to explode.”

  “They even rigged an industrial air-conditioning unit with duct work,” Trent said.

  “Cooking meth is dangerous,” Radcliff explained. “The vapors alone can kill you. And scores of cooks have blown themselves up.”

  “They must jet the fumes through the sewer lines,” Trent said. “What do you figure they do with the toxic waste?”

  “Well, you get about seven pounds of sludge for each pound of speed,” Radcliff said, caressing the plastic funnel of the leaf blower. “Bet they drop that scum in the underground river you saw in the blueprints.”

  “Bastards.”

  Radcliff snorted in disgust. “For sure.”

  “The door to the kennel is to the left of where Triple is standing,” Trent said. “That’s where the Apostles and the Kings will drop in. When the dogs start barking, get ready.”

  “Fuck those gangsters; fuck their meth.”

  “I need ten minutes to get out of this hellhole.”

  Radcliff looked at his watch. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Then give me another ten. That’s when you call Garcia.”

  “Did you tip the FBI to the MANPADS?”

  “I did. All the weapons are accounted for and in federal custody except for one M4 shotgun and one MANPAD. Got another emergency lined up?”

  “Not yet; but I’ll dream one up.”

  Radcliff eyed Trent suspiciously. “The weapons were on the floor, and the wooden boxes were gone. What did you do?”

  Trent shrugged. “I did my part. Now where is she?”

  Radcliff’s stony features softened a bit. “The Lilly Orphanage down in Macon,” he said, handing Trent some slips of paper.

  Bewildered, Trent asked, “What are these for?”

  “Gas receipts paid in cash. You’re gonna need an alibi. I’d just got back from checking on Chloe when I caught your sorry ass snooping through my garage.”

  Trent handed Radcliff the Mossberg and said, “This is bullshit. You don’t have to fight this battle. Let’s withdraw. Leave it for the cops.”

  “And what? Spend the rest of my life in prison?”

  “But you’re guaranteed to survive the night.”

  “Has a nice ring to it. But I have to finish this.”

  “Why?”

  “My daughter. And my wife. And all the other victims of violent crimes.” There was an awkward silence and he said, “Before we both drown in a sea of tears, you need to hike back to the construction site.”

  “Then give me your shield.”

  “Don’t think I’m coming up?”

  “I know you’re not.”

  Radcliff slipped his badge-clip off his belt and handed it to Trent. He sighed. “You’re a good egg, a bit nosey for my taste, but on the square. Now get outta here.”

  Trent started back down the pipe. “Radcliff, no hard—”

  “Don’t say it, Cowboy. Tell Maya that Chloe was treated swell.”

  “Will do.”

  A minute later Trent heard the whine of a leaf blower.

  #

  Trent climbed out of the tunnel into the night. Snow was falling, and low clouds drifted over the city; only the bottom halves of the skyscrapers were visible.

  He walked back to the FOX Theater and stopped in a tiny jazz club he’d frequented since he moved to Atlanta. It was time to unwind with a stiff drink.

  The club was crowded. As he elbowed his way to the bar, a few people who knew him said hello. A pretty woman he’d wanted to ask out was seated at a table with her friends. He sat at the bar and decided to see how things panned out with Rikki.

  Trent got the bartender’s attention and said, “A double brandy. Nah, make it two.”

  After the bartender withdrew, Trent called Garcia on Butler’s cell phone. He told him where the meth lab was located and that the majority of Triple’s thugs were inside. He also asked him to tip the King’s to the location. With a little luck he might be able to kill two birds with one stone.

  Then he called Jake and told him he had the object and that he and Elwood should hurry to the corner of Ponce De Leon and Peachtree to watch the fireworks. He sat for a few minutes sipping the brandy. The amber liquid slid down like velvet and warmed his insides.

  A blues band was assembling onstage. A smartly dressed black man with a feather in his cap sat at an organ. An upright bassist and a lead guitarist rounded out the trio.

  Trent listened to a few Grant Green standards then walked outside and smoked a cigarette. The soft sound of something thumping the brick wall by his leg got his attention. He glanced down. A medium-sized dog barked softly and wagged his tail. Lucky! Then he looked in the street. A yellow dog rushed a car and snapped at the rear wheel. Be damned! Radcliff let the dogs out!

  At one-fifteen exactly, Trent looked at the Heineken sponsored digital clock on the side of a skyscraper, a converted soda truck rounded the corner and slewed to a stop across from Lynn’s. Two dozen gangsters dressed in black poured from the truck and scaled Lynn’s security fence.

  Trent dropped Radcliff’s star-shaped gold badge to the pavement and ground it with his heel. When it was sufficiently scuffed, he put it back in his pocket. Then he made an anonymous call to the police and pitched Butler’s phone into the gutter. He was turning for the bar when he saw Jake and Elwood’s BMW idling at the curb.

  Inside, the trio had launched into ‘Smokestack Lightning’ and several clean-cut college kids rocked on the small dance floor. The intoxicating music was full of twists and turns and took his mind away from the bad business with Lynn, Radcliff, the crooked cops, and the gangsters.

  Trent glanced at a muted television behind the bar. The local programming had been interrupted for a news flash. A redbrick house engulfed in flames filled the screen. White caps scrolled across the bottom: BREAKING NEWS! A RAGING FIRE HAS BROKEN OUT IN MIDTOWN BETWEEN THE FOX THEATER AND THE SOUTHERN BELL BUILDING . . .

  Right then the front door of the jazz club flew open and a man yelled, “The house next door is on fire!”

  Chapter 60

  Trent dashed outside with a swarm of revelers and was greeted by a din of confusion.

  Four red fire trucks were pulled alongside the curb. Even at idle power, the massive diesel engines vibrated the sidewalks. A sea of police cars were parked at odd angles in the street, blue lights pulsed, and the sirens merged into an ear-splitting wail. Blazing headlights sliced through the snow and excited figures ran back and forth between the vehicles.
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  The explosion hit Atlanta like an earthquake. Then there was an ear-splitting sound akin to a train wreck and jets of colored flames shot out twenty or thirty feet from the sidewalk gutters. The windows of Lynn’s house turned cherry red, and the force of the explosion blasted them outward, showering the yard with glass. Then the front door blew off its hinges and cart wheeled across the yard. Ribbons of blood-red flames danced from all the openings.

  The firestorm forced the firefighters and police and onlookers to pull back.

  Jake and Elwood were leaning against their sedan watching the action. They were dressed in the same dark shoes, dark suits, and dark glasses. A thin old homeless man in a great coat stood next to them; he was waving an empty wine bottle and yelling, “Burn baby, burn!”

  The raging fire howled like a locomotive and punched through the roof. Groaning and creaking, the house crumbled and then vanished with a tortured scream into a deep crater. In its wake, an immense sulfur-red tornado shot with acid-yellow streaks leapt toward the leaden clouds. The deafening sounds of the explosions were carried in compression waves that echoed off the surfaces of the buildings.

  “Trent,” Elwood yelled, pointing with a cup of Starbucks.

  “Huh?”

  “Behind you! Look behind you!”

  Trent turned from the flames and spotted a plume of fizzy smoke rising from a manhole cover; then the lid slid aside and black smoke gushed skyward. A man’s head and shoulders rose up from the hole and rotated toward the fire.

  Trent knew what to do; he immediately picked up a medium-sized rock and heaved it fastball style. The rock bounced off the man’s head. He screamed, shifted his stance, and glanced at Trent.

  Trent examined his sooty face and smoldering clothes. “Butler!” he yelled.

  The man dropped into the sewer pipe.

  Trent raced to the manhole and peered inside. A string of illuminated lights swayed from the roof; they blinked on and off, flooding the sewer pipe with smoky yellow light, then bathing it in darkness.

  Unable to see more than a few feet through the satanic landscape, Trent lowered himself into the pipe. He found the metal ladder by feel and descended; at the last rung he dropped and twisted his ankle on a piece of wreckage. Now it was his turn to scream and he winced in pain.

  Hundreds of feet to his left and down the narrow pipe he could see a vague cherry-shaped lobe of roaring fire where the house had collapsed into the meth lab. Strange fans of red and pale blue flames like so many random blowtorches stabbed violently in his direction. He could feel the heat from the fire and coughed wildly from the acrid smoke.

  He hobbled away from the blaze; every step on his bum ankle was painful as he waded through ankle-high water and debris. Then the lights went out. He strained to make out any shapes at all in front of him.

  It was then he bumped into an upturned metal wall-cabinet whose door had been wrenched open by the blast. When the lights flickered on, he saw several weapons scattered inside.

  Falling to his knees, he retrieved a pump-action shotgun and racked the slide. The big gun felt like a dream-come-true in his hands as he hurried down the pipe.

  From the street above, the wailing of police sirens abated as Trent moved further into the pipe.

  We’re at the bottom of Hell, Butler, he thought. You can’t hide now . . .

  A few minutes later he stood at the junction of the two pipes he and Radcliff had passed. The newer section leading to the construction site was to his right. To his left, the walls were covered with slime and water dripped from the ceiling.

  Which way? He had no idea. Then the lights went out again. Suddenly a brilliant flare lit the interior of the pipe to his left. A shrinking shadow danced on the wall where the pipe made an abrupt turn.

  As he hobbled after Butler a burst of brown water and detritus sloshed into the back of his legs; he waded through the oily river and spotted Butler climbing a metal ladder into a vertical passageway.

  Trent leveled the shotgun. As his finger tightened on the trigger, a rushing stream of sewage knocked him off balance. The gun discharged, and the pellets swirled off the walls. He toppled forward into a river of trash as the sound of the gunblast reverberated through the pipe.

  Butler turned and fired at Trent. The shots fountained the water as the current carried Trent rapidly on. He held fast to a wooden pallet and surfed past Butler. In desperation he threw up his arm; somehow he hit Butler’s wrist, and the gun fell from his hand.

  The terminus of the pipe came up fast. Like a battering ram, the swift-moving river slammed into the cap, sloshed back, and knocked Trent from his raft. He floated on his back, using his hands on the string of overhead lights to pull himself away from the cap. The water continued to rise. Trent found the bottom rung of a ladder and started climbing.

  He squeezed into the vertical tunnel and had taken two good breaths when the cavity flooded.

  I can’t drown, he thought frantically, pushing upward with all his strength against a cast-iron manhole cover. His awareness dimmed; he made a last effort to open his eyes, but saw only darkness.

  He was almost unconsciousness when the water pressure popped the hatch from its housing and deposited him on an empty sidewalk. Gasping for air, he staggered to his feet.

  An old woman in shabby clothes was standing at the corner cranking out Christmas music on an upright bass held together with duct tape.

  Trent turned and realized where he was. Tenth and West Peachtree Street! I’m still in Midtown!

  Across the street was the MARTA underground. Taxis flowed from the station entrance. Knots of people came and went from banks of escalators. A city policeman chatted with a vendor turning hotdogs on his cart. A garbage truck paused at the corner.

  Time to think. Time was running out. Trent limped, and half jogged, toward the escalators. “Excuse me, miss,” he called out to the old woman. “A man ran by here. Did you—”

  She pointed her bow at an open service door in a dark corner of the MARTA station.

  Chapter 61

  Trent ran through the doorway. He hurtled down a metal staircase illuminated by a single yellow bulb that hung in the center of the sloping ceiling. At the bottom he found another open door. In front of him was a square of semidarkness. To his left was the MARTA boarding platform; to his right, at fixed distances along the concrete tunnel, neon strip lighting illuminated the soot-covered walls and twin ribbons of glistening track.

  A shadowy figure appeared briefly under a distant light. Trent dashed after him. It was then that a whoosh of air knocked him to his knees. He regained his footing and flattened himself against the cold wall.

  An uptown train had pulled away from the station. The shiny steel cars roared by inches from his face. Metal rollers screamed against the rails like snarling cats. He caught glimpses of faces and wall posters in the windows. A little girl holding her mother’s hand spotted Trent; she looked astonished and began to point, but the red taillights flickered and the cars disappeared into the void.

  Guided by the dim lights, Trent jogged into the snaking tunnel. A rattling noise echoed in the distance. He hoped like hell it was Butler.

  The sound of an approaching train alerted Trent. He glanced behind. Nothing on my track. A train highballed around a bend in front of him and flashed by in the opposite direction.

  Trent froze against the deafening noise. Suddenly Butler had him around the throat in a skillful choke-hold. “There’s no one here to help you now, Palmer,” he said between angry snorts. He tightened his grip like a maddened gorilla.

  They were engaged in a battle to the death as Trent jabbed his fingers hard behind his shoulder and hit Butler in the eye. That did the trick. Butler screamed and relaxed his hold. Trent twisted and elbowed him hard in the mouth; he felt teeth give.

  Butler cried out in pain and wrapped his arms around Trent’s shoulders. They punched, grappled, and gouged at one another like wrestlers. Trent slipped and fell flat on his back, and Butler came down o
n top of him.

  Trent kicked him as hard as he could in the groin. His timing was right, as was his judging the distance, and Butler immediately curled into a ball with his hands cupped between his legs. Trent ended up on top, and with both hands he smashed Butler’s head into the concrete with a bang loud enough to echo off the tunnel walls.

  Trent stood on wobbly legs over Butler’s prone body; he figured the man was unconscious or dead. Sweat rolled down his face as hobbled toward the exit. He felt like crying.

  Then he heard a scraping noise. Turning, he saw a shadowy figure staggering toward him. Butler lunged and threw a right hand at Trent’s face. Trent parried the blow then drove his fists into him over and over. Butler screamed, but the punches didn’t slow him. He faked with a jab, then kicked Trent hard on his bad knee.

  The pain was blinding and Trent went down again on his back. Just then a train rushed by; passing no more than a foot in front of him. A blast of wind tousled his hair and spit grit into his eyes. Butler tried to push him into the steel wheels, but Trent pinned his legs around Butler’s hips and lifted. He fell between two cars and was gone.

  Trent could see Butler’s torso and legs as the train rounded the bend. Then he heard a splat, and Butler’s fading scream was like the sound one would make when falling from a great height.

  Trent walked deeper into the tunnel. He stopped beside a vertical steel post that guided heavy-duty electrical cables from the ceiling into the tracks. The post had severed Butler at the waist. Trent flashed his dying light on Butler’s bloody hips and crumpled legs. The train had carried the upper half of his body God knows where.

  Trent climbed the metal stairs out of the underground and sat on the curb. He massaged the fingers of his right hand against the knuckles of his left, which were scraped, bloodied, and hot with numbing pain.

  The wind was raw and tearing at his wet clothes when a Crown Vic slewed to a stop at an angle to the curb. Priest popped his blue flashers and said, “Get in the car, Palmer; you’re going to catch your death.”

  Trent slid onto the bench seat and left the door ajar. He faced Priest and noticed deep lines etched into his brow, like the stress of the last few days had run razors across his skin.