Boston Cream

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by Howard Shrier


  I stood up slowly, heard a crack in my knee as a tendon stretched. “All clear,” I whispered back.

  He came around the corner, raising the gun barrel toward the ceiling, and waved me over.

  “Where’s Daggett?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “He got away. And he’s got a gun.”

  “Whose?”

  “The guy I laid out on the dock.”

  “Shit.”

  “I fucked up. Forgot to frisk him.”

  “Never mind that. It was all happening fast. We’ll get him.”

  “And Joey?”

  “I had to chase him into an office and shoot him in the back. First time I ever did that. All my years in the game, I never had to.”

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Hey,” he said. “This is me, Geller. Not some rent-a-fuck you hire off the street. I won’t lose a minute’s sleep over any of them.”

  “All right.”

  “What about you? You took another shot to the head.”

  “I’m good,” I lied. The truth was I felt unsteady, weak, more than a little nauseous. “Any sign of Jenn?”

  “Not yet. I was about to check these rooms.”

  “Daggett said she was in Prep Room B.”

  “You believe him?”

  “He had a gun on him when he said it.”

  We moved together down the hall, Ryan going forward, me walking backwards, covering us against any action from the rear. When we got to Prep Room B, he whispered, “How do you want to do this?”

  “Kick the door in and shoot anyone who isn’t Jenn.”

  “You’re the karate kid,” he said. “As soon as you kick it, drop to the floor so you’re not in my line of fire.”

  “Use your pistol,” I said. “It’s too close quarters for a shotgun.”

  He set the shotgun down carefully, stock down, and took out his Glock and nodded. I lined myself up in front of the door handle. There was no additional lock on the door. I focused on the area where the strike plate would be, took a deep breath and launched a front kick. The door flew open and I hurled myself forward and saw Jenn down on the bed, her wrists and arms strapped to the frame, a gag in her mouth, her body twisting back and forth, her eyes wide with fear. A man with hair like a scrub brush was standing next to the bed, dropping a cellphone and going for a gun under his arm. Ryan shot him twice in the chest. He fell backwards on top of Jenn; I leapt forward and grabbed his bloody shirt front, yanked him off her and threw his body to the ground.

  She was alive. Thank fucking God she was alive. I sat down on the narrow bed and undid the gag first and she cried out my name. I leaned down and put my arms around her and felt hot tears on my neck.

  “We got you,” I said.

  She tried to say something but her sobs became hiccups and I just held her, feeling her chest heaving and shaking. I felt tears well up in my eyes too.

  “I knew you would,” she finally said.

  “Ahem,” Ryan said.

  She turned her head and saw him and broke out in a grin. “And you,” she said. “I hoped you’d mix in.”

  “When don’t I?”

  I got her wrists free while Ryan went back to the door and retrieved his shotgun, covering the hallway. “Did they hurt you?”

  She sat up, her cheeks shiny with tears. She wiped them with one sleeve. “I don’t think so. Not much, anyway. Daggett slapped me a couple of times because of what I did to his friend. But then he said he wanted me healthy so he could use me. You heard what for. He brought me in here and this guy put a needle in my arm. That’s all I remember except for—”

  “For what?”

  “Weird dreams. Really weird. I mean, I … What time is it anyway? Is it still Saturday?”

  “Monday,” I said. “Monday night.”

  “Jesus.”

  “When did you wake up?”

  “I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes ago. Daggett’s friend, the one I hit with the car, he called a few minutes ago. He was on the way here.”

  “Don’t worry about him.” I stood and held out my hand. “Can you stand up?”

  She took my hand out and I pulled her up gently. I pulled the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her and held her tight again.

  “My clothes are on the chair,” she said.

  I kept my arm around her shoulder. She took a few steps and grimaced and then tears started to stream down her face again.

  “What?” I said. “Honey, what?”

  “It hurts,” she said. “My—down there—it hurts. Oh, God. Oh God, what did he do? Did he—what, the whole time I was here?”

  She looked down at the man on the floor and kicked him hard in the head, the sheet coming off her and falling to the floor, just as David Fine’s grey blanket had fallen to the sand on Plum Island. She threw her arms around me and I held her tight.

  “Listen,” I said. “Daggett is in the building. On the loose. We have to go find him.”

  “Wait,” she said.

  We held each other another half minute. When I felt the panic subside, I let go of her and picked up the dead man’s gun—I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Ryan and I turned our backs while she got dressed. Then I handed the gun to Jenn and said, “Stay here until we find Daggett.”

  “No.”

  “It’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “I said no, Jonah. I’m not spending another second in this room.”

  “You’ll be safer here.”

  “I’m coming with you. Like it or not.”

  Ryan put out his hand and said, “Let me see.”

  She paused, then handed the gun to him. From its flat black surface, I guessed it was another Glock. He racked the slide and handed it back to her. “There’s no safety on this,” he said, “so keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot. And if you do fire it, keep pressure on the trigger and it’ll keep firing. You have enough rounds in there to do plenty of damage.”

  “Good.”

  Ryan went out first and knocked softly on the door to Prep Room A. “Frank?”

  There was a moment of silence, then we heard steps and the doorknob turned. The door swung open and Frank stood there, his pistol levelled at us. His eyes took in the three of us. He said, “Where’s Victor?”

  “He didn’t make it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Frank’s lips drew tight together and he looked down at the floor and shook his head. “Daggett get him?”

  “No. One of his men.”

  “Which one?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ryan said. “He’s dead too.”

  Over his wide shoulders I saw Stayner and three other people in surgical masks, and Marc and Lesley McConnell. She was in a hospital gown whose sleeves came down to the elbows; below them I saw the angry fistulas bulging beneath her pale skin.

  “It’s off, then,” McConnell said. “Lesley’s not getting her transplant tonight.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Bullshit. This guy’s not even the real donor”—pointing to Frank—“so you knew all along it wouldn’t happen.”

  “I can’t argue this now. We have to find Daggett.”

  “He’s here?” Frank said.

  “Somewhere in the building. We’ll find him.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Frank said.

  “We need someone to stand guard here,” I said. “If he’s still inside, this is probably where he’ll come.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jenn said. “As long as I’m not alone in that other room with that creep, I’ll be fine.”

  “I was in the service before law school,” Marc McConnell said. “I can handle a gun.”

  I knelt down and pulled aside the sheet draped over the operating table. The gun we’d given to Stayner was there.

  “Put on gloves before you touch it,” I said. “You too, Jenn.”

  The surgical nurse handed them each a pair. When they were on, I gave the gun to McConnell, who looked it
over, hefted it and thumbed the safety off. Jenn also put on gloves, then used a cloth to wipe down the gun she’d been holding.

  “Anyone but us comes in that door,” Ryan said, “don’t even wait for him to clear it. Squeeze the trigger and hold it till he stops dancing. Both of you.”

  McConnell nodded.

  “You be careful,” Jenn said. “All of you.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I didn’t spend all this time looking for you to get myself killed.”

  “Does Daggett know that?” she asked.

  CHAPTER 39

  We came to the main foyer where all the bodies were. Frank knelt beside Victor and touched his cheek; placed two fingers against the side of his neck, feeling for the pulse he knew would not be there. Then he stuck his pistol in his waist and picked up Victor’s Uzi. “Fucking Victor,” he said.

  Ryan put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. He shrugged it off. “He was the late mistake, born fifteen years after me, when my parents didn’t think they could still have kids. I was the oldest of six, so I practically raised him. I never should have brought him along. I don’t mean tonight, I mean the life, but it’s all he ever wanted. All he could do. He was useless at anything else. And not even so good at this.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. But we had Jenn back; the gravity of other losses couldn’t hold me back.

  “You have any burning need to take Daggett alive?” he said.

  Ryan and I looked at each other. I said, “No.”

  “Good. Let’s get him.”

  “I’ll go out where he went out,” I said. “Come back in the side door. If he’s inside, that’s where he entered.”

  “You actually see him go back in?” Frank said. “He could have made a run for the street.”

  “And do what?” Ryan asked. “Hail a cab?”

  “I don’t know, hijack a car?”

  “Wouldn’t try that around here.”

  “His knee is wrecked,” I said. “He was hobbling pretty badly. I don’t think he could have made it to the street.”

  “Okay,” Frank said. “I don’t want to leave Victor. See if you can flush Daggett out. I’ll be here if he comes down either hallway.”

  “I’ll check the offices,” Ryan said. “He could have made it into one of them.”

  “Go in shotgun first.”

  “Never mind me,” he said. “Don’t you try any humanitarian shit. No trying to wing him. Aim for the centre mass.”

  “I know.”

  I looked at both men. Frank’s face was grim and clouded over, his eyes black as wet stones. Ryan looked bright and alert, the hunter in him unleashed. We nodded at each other and went our separate ways.

  I went out the garage door and made my way around the building to the side door. Now that I knew Jenn was safe, my head felt better than before. It hurt where Daggett had elbowed me, but I felt no nausea and my vision was clear. I had survived contact. I could do this. I opened the door slowly, sweeping the Colt barrel side to side, and went down the carpeted hall. I saw wet footprints ahead, but they faded after a few steps and told me no more. Portraits of company founders lined the walls: the first two generations that had built it up and the third that had run it into its present bankrupt state. A men’s room on my left, women’s on my right. I put an ear to each door and listened. Nothing. I eased the door to the men’s open and looked in the mirror over a pair of sinks. Nothing. Knelt down and looked into the stalls. Pushed open each door in case he was perched on a toilet. No one there. Same routine in the women’s. No one there either.

  Back down the hall. No sound except my own feet rubbing against the grain of the carpet, my breath whistling through my nostrils, my heart beating a dull tattoo. The hallway took me back to the foyer; I knew I was getting close when I could smell gunpowder and coppery blood. I pressed myself against the wall as I got closer to the open space. I could see the man Victor had clubbed, lying beside his tipped chair. Then Victor himself, Frank standing over the body. His Uzi on the ground and behind him Sean Daggett, a gun pressed to the back of Frank’s head, his face twisted in an ugly sneer.

  “That’s right,” he snarled. “I got your man. I know this place like none of you. He was looking the wrong way when I come up behind him. So what you gonna do, pal? Watch me blow his head off or lay down your gun?”

  Just beyond him I saw Dante Ryan coming down the hall across the foyer. Daggett caught sight of him too, stepping back and pulling Frank with him so neither of us had a clear shot.

  “You too, dago,” he said. “Lay it down.”

  If we did, we were dead, all of us. And with our more powerful weapons, Daggett could storm Prep Room A and take out Jenn, Marc McConnell and everyone else. It would be a bloodbath, wholesale slaughter, and we all knew it.

  “Don’t do it,” Frank said. “Shoot the fucker.”

  Daggett said, “Shut up.”

  Frank said, “Go to hell,” and bucked his hips back hard enough to force Daggett back, twist out of his grasp and throw himself forward. Daggett fired and blood sprayed up from Frank’s head and into the air as he fell face first. That was all Ryan and I needed. His shotgun bucked and blasted Daggett’s right shoulder and spun him toward me. Two three-round bursts from my Colt ripped his chest from lower right abdomen to left collarbone.

  There was no need for more. His gun fell to the floor a second before he did. Ryan kept his shotgun levelled as he stalked over to him. I ran to Frank. Blood was streaming from his scalp and running down his neck. I dug my fingers into his carotid artery and felt a faint pulse like a faraway drum.

  I said. “Grab his legs.”

  “One sec.” Ryan put his shotgun down and knelt at Daggett’s side.

  “Forget him,” I said. “He’s dead.”

  Ryan took his Glock out of the shoulder holster and screwed on the suppressor. After the torrent of gunfire we had just unleashed, what could be the point of that?

  “Dante. Now.”

  “Shh.”

  He stood, backed up a step and fired two shots into the centre of Daggett’s forehead, just missing getting hit by the spray. “Done.”

  We got Frank to the surgeons in half a minute. Ryan ran to free Dr. Reimer from the trunk of Stayner’s car while the rest of the team started prepping Frank. Stayner told us to clear out, that the sterility of the room had already been compromised a thousand times over, but that he would do what he could, no guarantees. We retreated to the chapel. After the roar of shotguns and automatic fire, it was incredibly peaceful.

  “Won’t someone call the police about all the shooting?” Marc McConnell asked.

  “Maybe in your neighbourhood,” I said. “I believe the motto around here is, Don’t snitch. But if you’re worried about being found here, take off.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Honey,” Lesley said, “maybe we should. If the police do come, how would we explain this?”

  “Soon,” he said.

  We sat along the front pew facing the dais where ministers and family members would have delivered eulogies for the dead over the decades Halladay’s had been in business. With all the men who had died tonight, it seemed someone should have been up there speaking. But we just sat in the dim light, all of us wearing latex gloves as if we feared catching something from the very air. I had my arm around Jenn, holding her tightly. Ryan was on my other side. At one point he leaned in and whispered, “I can’t believe of the two of us, you got the centre mass.”

  “Only because you hit his shoulder first. You made him a good target.”

  “The shotgun jumped,” he said. “A Mossberg. I’m a little upset about that.”

  He could dismiss it so easily. Not me. Brooding is a skill Jews learn early and perfect all their lives. I sat there soaking in the fact that I had killed again. And with a gun, again, the first time I had fired one at a man since that ambush in Hebron when I had shot the man stabbing my friend Roni. But I would change nothing of what had happened to Daggett. He was a murde
rer many times over. In the last few days alone he had ordered the killings of David, Carol-Ann, his own two thugs. Had caused the death of Victor and so nearly of Frank. Had tried to kill Ryan and me. Would have killed my best friend and partner in the most callous and gruesome way possible.

  So why were my hands shaking? Why was my mouth so dry? Why was my head aching again, and from more than just Daggett’s elbow? I wished I had gelcaps. I tried stroking Jenn’s hair but with gloved hands there was too much static for it to be reassuring. For either of us. I went back to holding her shoulder.

  “Hello?”

  We all turned to see Jim Reimer in the chapel entrance, his mask lowered, an unperturbed look on his face.

  “He’ll be all right,” Reimer said. “The bullet tore a furrow up the back of his scalp but caused no grievous damage.”

  “A doctor who speaks English,” Ryan said.

  “They teach that in Boston,” Reimer said. “We stitched the wound closed and gave him something for the pain and some antibiotics he needs to take until they’re gone. You may need to repeat that to him when he’s a little less groggy.”

  We trooped out of the chapel and back to the makeshift surgery. Frank was lying on the table, his head bandaged, staring dully at the ceiling.

  “You saved us,” I said to him.

  He turned his eyes to me, struggling to bring me into focus. “Wasn’t trying to,” he said. “I just wanted one of you to get him.”

  “We did.”

  “Then I’m thanking you.”

  “We all do,” Stayner said. “He put us through a nightmare. It went against everything we believe in.”

  “So does your fee,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you mean. I told you I give every cent of his money away.”

  “I’m talking about the congressman’s money. The rabbi was getting a quarter-million,” I said. “I can’t believe you’d take less.”

  His face coloured a moment, then he put his shoulders back and assumed the posture of the great surgeon who must never be questioned or second-guessed. “This is not the time for this. Everyone,” he said to his people, “start packing up.”

  “No,” Marc McConnell said. He was behind me, the last one to have come into the room. And he was pointing his gun at Stayner.

 

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