Case of the Claw

by Keith DeCandido

  Turning right onto Giacoia, Fontaine asked, "You were talking about having kids?"

  "No, we were arguing about it. And after what happened, I'm just glad I lost those arguments…"

  "Yeah. Trust me, you do not want to have to deal with raising a kid alone in this town." Fontaine pulled the car in front of the fire hydrant situated between the two identical brown-brick apartment buildings that were located at 2547 and 2549. Baptiste was just grateful that she finally decelerated.

  They approached the dirty glass door to 2547. The familiar face of the building superintendant, Mr. Krasnicki, stood just inside, and he opened the door for them on arrival. Like ninety percent of the residents within a two-block radius, including the Bajramis, Krasnicki was an Albanian immigrant.

  "How do you do, Officer Baptiste, Officer Fontaine," Krasnicki said in an accented voice as he held the door long enough for them to pass into the hallway.

  Fontaine asked, "Did you make the 911 call?"

  Krasnicki nodded, leading them up the creaky wooden stairs. "But this time, is different."

  Baptiste frowned. "Different, how?" As they walked upstairs he smelled lemon and olive oil and garlic.

  "Mr. Bajrami comes home early from the work—he comes home with Mrs. Bajrami."

  "That is odd." Baptiste wasn't surprised that Edon Bajrami came home early—he worked at the post office, so he probably got off early after the Brute Squad's attack—but what would his wife be doing with him?

  "This time I hear strange noise like something is shorted out, then I hear scream. But I never hear scream like this. Nobody answer the door, and they never give me key to deadbolt lock. In violation of lease, but what can you do? So I call you."

  They arrived at the third floor. Baptiste noticed that the linoleum was just as old and cracked as ever, but it was clean. When he was here last, Baptiste had made an off-hand comment about the state of the floor, and he was glad to see that Krasnicki had taken it to heart. It wasn't much, but maybe a man was less likely to hit his wife if his hall floor was cleaned.

  Okay, that is ridiculously stupid. Baptiste shook his head and knocked on the door with a tarnished brass "3D" on it. "Mr. and Mrs. Bajrami, this is the police! Please open the door!"

  Silence for several seconds. Baptiste could hear Fontaine breathing.

  Another knock. "Mr. and Mrs. Bajrami, please open up!"

  Fontaine put in, "It's Officers Fontaine and Baptiste—we know you're home, please open the door!"

  For whatever reason, that did the trick. Baptiste heard footsteps shuffling toward the door and the distinctive clacking sound of deadbolts being moved aside. Then the big metal door creaked open to reveal the diminutive form of Zamira Bajrami. The middle-aged woman was dressed in a worn blue dress and had the same hangdog expression on her face that she always had. Baptiste could see the faded remains of a facial bruise that was poorly covered by makeup, and her right eye still had a bit of swelling, though it was barely noticeable now.

  "I am sorry," she muttered. "He was drinking again, and…"

  She started to cry for a brief second, then stopped herself, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her dress.

  "May we come in, please, Mrs. Bajrami?" Baptiste asked gently.

  "Of course." She stepped aside to allow them entry into their modest one-bedroom apartment.

  There was a small kitchenette on the left as they entered. The sink was empty, a dry-rack filled neatly with clean dishes next to it. Beyond that was the living room, which had entirely brown furniture: couch, easy chair, end tables, coffee table, dining-room table that took up one corner, chairs, and the sideboard where Edon's many bottles of alcohol were stored. It was all the same dull shade of brown. Even the television was brown, as was the carpet. The only thing that broke the monotony of color was the silver cable box on top of the TV. To the right was a small hallway that led to the bedroom and bathroom.

  The brown carpet was immaculate—except for a weirdly familiar pile of ashes in the middle of the floor.

  "Oh hell," Fontaine said.

  "What?" Baptiste asked. But Fontaine was just staring at the coffee table for some reason. When his partner didn't answer, he turned to Zamira. "Mrs. Bajrami, where is your husband?"

  Tears welled up in her eyes again, but she said nothing.

  "Is he in the bedroom?" Baptiste prompted.

  Still she was silent, and now shaking a bit. Baptiste started to move toward the hallway, but Fontaine was now standing over the coffee table.

  "Trevor, I don't—I don't think he's there." Fontaine grabbed a tissue from a box on one of the end tables, then picked up a familiar-looking object off the coffee table with the tissue.

  Baptiste squinted at it. It looked like a toy gun, at first.

  Then he remembered the last time he saw a pile of ashes like the one on the floor: on the corner of 12th and Kurtzman after a trash can had been hit by one of the Brute Squad's ray-guns.

  A ray-gun that looked a lot like what Fontaine was holding in his hand.

  "Jesus shit," Baptiste muttered.

  Fontaine regarded him. "Remember when Sean and Paulie's FF36 fritzed? I thought that one of the Brutes was missing her ray-gun after that."

  Baptiste turned to Zamira. "What happened, Mrs. Bajrami?"

  Again, Zamira wiped her eyes with a now-very-damp sleeve. "I was shopping for food. Edon ask me for coffee for coffee maker for office. I bring it by to give him on way home. When I get there, the kopuks arrive at post office."

  While Baptiste's knowledge of Albanian was severely limited, he did know that the community hereabouts generally referred to the costumed bad guys as kopuks. "Go on, please."

  "After Superior Six arrive, and you put up orange light, I feel safe. But then orange light go away for a minute—and then that lands at my feet." She pointed at the gun in Fontaine's hand.

  Zamira shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. "I do not know why I took. I just did. And then Edon meets me saying he went home early and everything fine, I make him lunch and we eat and all is good."

  She sniffled once. Fontaine grabbed another tissue out of the box on the end table and handed it to her.

  "Thank you." She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose quickly, then crumpled the tissue in her fist. "After lunch, he has a drink. Then he starts to yell and scream. And then he raises his hand to hit me and for the first time I think that he does not have to hit me if I point gun at him." Her mouth opened as if to scream or cry, but no sound came out for a second. "He laugh at me! He asks me what toy store I bought kids' gun from so he can return it. Or perhaps give to kids in playground for games."

  Baptiste shuddered at the fact that both he and Edon mistook a deadly weapon for a toy at first.

  "And then he walk up to me and tell me to give him toy and I say it is not toy and he laugh at me again! Big laugh, like hyena. And then... then…"

  Zamira put her head in her hands and sobbed.

  At first Baptiste wanted to comfort her, but he found that he couldn't. Instead, he looked helplessly at Fontaine.

  She sounded just as helpless when she said, "Yeah. I guess we have to arrest her, huh?"

  "We should award her with a medal—but yes, I'm afraid that this is what we must do." With a heavy sigh, he took out his handcuffs. "Zamira Bajrami, you are under arrest for the murder of Edon Bajrami. You have the right to remain silent…"

  11.45pm

  "This really really sucks."

  Paul Fiorello took a sip of his fifth—or maybe sixth—cup of coffee since they'd started the stakeout hours ago. Their blue-and-white was parked in front of an abandoned building on Jaffee Avenue. "Not that I disagree, Sean, but I'm wondering something."

  Sean O'Malley stopped drumming on the steering wheel for a moment to look at Fiorello. "Whatcha wondering, Paulie?"

  "What's the difference between it really really sucking now, as opposed to an hour ago when it just really sucked? I mean, what's the cutoff between sucking, really sucking, and
really really sucking?"

  "What really really sucks is that we volunteered for the fucking triple, right? And what happens? We get our asses kicked by a dork in a suit of armor, f'Chrissakes, we lose the Claw, we get yelled at by Old Man MacAvoy and that bitch from Narcotics, and then Sarge sticks us with this shit."

  "Hey, c'mon," Fiorello said, "the Claw was seen on this block. He may live near here. Or maybe there'll be a victim here. We gotta try."

  "I guess, but I still don't think we deserve to hump a cruiser in SimonValley all night."

  "After our FF36 went on the fritz, I'm surprised Paula didn't give us an even shittier detail." They'd heard about the Bajramis, and both Fiorello and his partner wondered whether or not that would have happened if their FF36 hadn't malfunctioned.

  On the other hand, Edon might have killed Zamira, so maybe it was for the best…

  Not wanting to dwell on that, Fiorello added, "And Krissie's not a bitch."

  O'Malley shot Fiorello a look. "'Krissie'? Really?"

  "Yeah. She's not that bad. I was glad she got bumped to Homicide."

  Shaking his head, O'Malley said, "Sorry, Paulie, but I never got nothin' but attitude from her. I don't put up with that shit from MacAvoy, and he's almost got his thirty, I sure as hell ain't takin' it from her." He turned to look at Fiorello. "Seriously, though—'Krissie'? She ain't a 'Krissie,' she's a 'Kristin.' Or 'your royal highness bitch Milewski.'"

  Fiorello shrugged. "We had a thing a while back. I was a rookie, she'd just gotten her gold shield."

  "Figures. You really will stick your dick in anything, won'tcha?"

  "I ain't never fucked a costume."

  Snorting, O'Malley said, "You ain't never had the chance."

  "Wanna bet?"

  Now O'Malley was grinning, showing off his crooked teeth. "Okay, this I gotta hear."

  "Remember that PAL charity thing last year?"

  "Not really—had an open bar."

  Fiorello shook his head. His partner was such a lightweight. "Remember who the keynote speaker was?"

  "Yeah, that chickie that works at that hero academy out in Fingerville, Magda something."

  "Firestone." Fiorello sucked down some more coffee. "Anyhow, after her speech, she started hitting all over me."

  "Just like half the damn women in the city. So you did it with her?"

  Staring at O'Malley like he was insane, Fiorello said, "No way! She's a mind-reader! You know what that means?"

  O'Malley grinned. "Means she still hit on you even though she could read your mind. You shouldn't'a fucked her, you shoulda married her."

  "No way I'm gettin' in the sack with a girl that knows what I'm thinkin'. It'll mess up my whole thing!"

  The grin widened. "Right, 'cause when you tell her you'll call her, she'll know you're full'a shit."

  "Exactly!" Fiorello frowned, realizing he'd been set up, then shook his head.

  O'Malley guffawed. "Look, I don't think that even counts."

  Now Fiorello was confused. "What doesn't?"

  "That mind-reader chickie isn't a real costume. I mean, she was a businesswoman, and now she helps run that super academy. She don't never even wear a costume."

  "Well, how often do we get that close to one of 'em?" Fiorello brightened. "Although, there was this one time, back when I was partnered with Nugent, when Suricata was at a crime scene."

  Rubbing his eyes, O'Malley groaned. "Yeah, yeah, I know, Paulie, she had the most athletic legs you ever seen. That's, like, the ninetieth time you told me that story. Me, I'd rather hit up Komodo Dragon. You ever see her without that lizard helmet? Whoosh."

  "Asian girls ain't my thing." Fiorello shrugged. "Now Ms. Terrific? That's my kinda gal. Gotta find me some real pics'a her." He dry-sipped his coffee cup, then crumpled it in one hand. "Anyhow, costume chicks, they're like on another level. I prefer to stick with normal girls, y'know?"

  Snorting, O'Malley said, "You ever meet a normal one, lemme know, 'kay? I'll throw a party. S'like finding a spotted owl." Then O'Malley straightened. "Or the goddamn Bolt."

  Fiorello chuckled. "You seriously think that—"

  But O'Malley was opening the door to the blue-and-white. Looking out the windshield, Fiorello saw a bald man walking toward the apartment building across the street.

  A familiar looking bald man from every roll call since Monday morning: Hiram Donewitz, a.k.a. the Bolt.

  "Don't move!" O'Malley bellowed, un-holstering his Beretta and pointing it straight at Donewitz.

  "Shit," Fiorello muttered. He thumbed his radio as he clambered out of the cruiser. "PCD, this is Unit 2202 with a signal 10. The Bolt sighted on the 500 block of Jaffee. Requesting backup."

  He took out his own weapon and pointed it at Donewitz from behind the vehicle, his arms on the car roof to steady his aim.

  Holding his hands in the air, Donewitz said, "Is there a problem, Officers?"

  O'Malley was slowly walking toward the perp while Fiorello covered him. "Don't play dumb with us. You're under arrest for escaping police custody and property damage—plus the DUI you got hit with Sunday night."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about, Officer. I don't remember damaging any property or being pulled over for a DUI. Look, I just came from an AA meeting, my sponsor can vouch for my whereabouts."

  Something was nagging at Fiorello. This was wrong, on more than one level.

  "I don't care if Mayor Goddamn Sittler can vouch for your whereabouts, Donewitz. Get down on the ground now!"

  "I'm telling you," Donewitz said, not moving, "you're making a big mistake."

  O'Malley was now almost on top of Donewitz. "I ain't gonna say it again, douchebag—on the ground now!"

  Then it hit Fiorello. "Sean, don't get any clo—"

  A beam of red light shot out from Donewitz's forehead right at O'Malley, which sent the officer flying back through the air right at the cruiser, and at Fiorello, who flinched.

  O'Malley crashed into the blue-and-white with a bone-shattering crunch. Fiorello recovered quickly, and aimed his Beretta at Donewitz—

  —who was pointing his left hand right at Fiorello.

  Shit!

  Fiorello squeezed the trigger of his Beretta even as another red beam emitted from Donewitz's left index finger.

  The world exploded a second later.

  Pain shot through Fiorello's arm. He found himself lying on the sidewalk of Jaffee Avenue, staring up at the night sky, which was blotted out in part by smoke. He felt tremendous heat to his left, and realized that the blue-and-white was on fire.

  His primary thought at the moment was that Sergeant Taylor was going to kill them for getting a cruiser blown up.

  Focus, Paulie, focus. The Bolt blew up the car. You need to move your ass upright and see if you shot him.

  Then Hiram Donewitz's hairless head was staring down at him, smiling. There was no sign of blood, so it seemed that Fiorello missed.

  "I tried to tell your partner that you were making a mistake. Shoulda listened."

  "Unit 2202, this is PCD, requesting signal 4. All units, signal 10 at the 500 block of Jaffee."

  Fiorello tried to reach for his radio, but there were two problems. One was that he couldn't really move his arm. The other was Donewitz, who said, "Nuh uh, copper. Don't touch that dial. You and me, we're going somewhere nice and quiet. When your buddies show up, they ain't comin' close to me, or you get a bolt to the head."

  Donewitz laughed at his own lousy joke as he grabbed Fiorello's uniform shirt and hauled him to his feet. Fiorello felt himself being guided forward by Donewitz's right hand while his left was hovering near Fiorello's temple.

  "Make one wrong move, pretty boy, and I slice open your head."

  Sirens sounded in the distance, getting closer.

  Donewitz looked back down Jaffee. "Dammit. All right, let's get inside."

  Fiorello felt his head swim as Donewitz dragged him toward the abandoned building they'd been parked in front of. He couldn't get his arms to wor
k right, and even if he could, the Bolt had the equivalent of a gun to his head.

  I am so screwed…

  PART THREE

  WEDNESDAY

  6am

  "Good morning SuperCity! And welcome to News 6 at 6. I'm Mindy Ling."

  "And I'm Chuck Ortiz. Later on, we'll get the inside scoop on the Brute Squad's attack on the post office, find out about a City Hall insider who's on the outside looking in, and a look inside the hottest new restaurant in Eisnerville. We'll also have Ian Michaelson with sports, Jack Magnusson filling for Debra Fine on weather, and Donna Brodsky with traffic. But first our top story. Mindy?"

  "Thanks, Chuck. This is a developing story, as an SCPD officer has been taken hostage by the villain known as the Bolt in SimonValley. We go now to Judi Bari. Judi?"

  "I'm here at the corner of Jaffee Avenue and 10th Street, just a block from where the Bolt attacked two uniformed police officers. SCPD has yet to identify the officers in question, but one of them was taken to KaneMemorialHospital and is in critical condition. The other was taken by the Bolt into the abandoned building two blocks behind me. The Bolt has the officer on the fourth floor, and has refused to speak to police negotiators. The SCPD's Emergency Action Team was summoned, and have been in place, but are currently in what's known as a hold. None of the officers on the scene have been willing to comment for the record, but SCPD spokeswoman Regina Dent has released a statement saying that the EATers will be doing everything they can to minimize risk to innocent bystanders. The Bolt's real name is Hiram Donewitz, and it's not known how he got his ability to fire a beam of coherent light from any pore in his body, but the ability has led to several jail sentences on a variety of charges, ranging from DUI to assault. For News 6 at 6, I'm Judi Bari."

  "Thanks, Judi. We'll be returning to this story as it develops. After the commercial break, we'll tell you about some good eats from the hottest spot in Eisnerville, plus Adriana Berardi's exclusive report on the surprise resignation of Mayor Sittler's travel secretary, which has a bit of a super twist."