by Brent Pilkey
Then he was beside Mason, not remembering having run across the living room. If he had been asked right then to describe the living room, he would have drawn a complete blank. It could have been filled with dancing hippos in tutus and he wouldn’t have noticed. But the hallway he could describe. It was his area of responsibility and he was damned if he was going to fuck this up.
The hall was short, no more than a dozen feet, and he was facing a closed door. The bathroom. The left side of the hall held two bedroom doors, also closed. The hall was too narrow for two people side by side, so Jack slipped in front of Mason, crouching below the level of Mason’s shotgun. They edged forward this way, guns trained on doors, trigger fingers resting easily along the weapons’ frames.
“I’ve got the hall,” Mason whispered. “The bedrooms are yours.”
Still crouched, Jack grasped the doorknob, turned it and flung the door open. It banged against the wall. “Police! Anyone in this room, I want to see your empty hands, now!”
Silence.
Didn’t think it would be that easy. Tucking his gun into his chest, Jack pivoted around the door frame, sweeping the room. Filthy yellow curtains filtered the afternoon sun and bathed the room in a putrid haze. A mattress, heavily stained and disfigured, lay amid the remains of countless take-out meals. The closet doors hung broken and sagging on their hinges. The closet held only more garbage.
“Clear!” was all he said as he slipped into position again with Mason.
The detective pushed himself as tightly as he could against the right-side wall, giving himself the greatest possible angle on the bedroom door. “I’ve got the second bedroom. Clear the bathroom.”
Jack called, “Police! You in the bathroom! Open the door and show us your hands! Do it now!”
No answer. No sounds of movement.
“It’s never easy, is it?” Mason echoed Jack’s thoughts.
“That wouldn’t be any fun.” Jack stalked the bathroom door, trusting Mason to blast anyone in the bedroom to hell and gone if they stuck their nose out. There was nowhere to hide and his ass was hanging in the wind, so he figured speed was better than stealth right now. He aimed for the same spot that Tank had targeted to obliterate the front door and lashed out with his foot, putting all of his weight behind it. Bathroom doors are not the same as front doors and this one flew open with a satisfying shattering of wood.
Jack followed through on his kick and rammed his shoulder into the door, smashing it flat against the wall, eliminating that hidden danger zone while covering the rest with his gun. Empty. Of people at least. The bathroom was empty but made the bedroom look clean. The toilet was overflowing with dried human waste and it looked like the tub was pulling double duty. Jack forced down the urge to vomit.
Breathing as shallowly as he could, he turned his back on the filth — How could people live like this? — and faced the final door. Mason edged closer and Jack twisted his free hand, showing he would try the doorknob. Mason signalled Jack to wait. He cracked his neck to the left, then the right, settled the shotgun back into place against his shoulder and nodded at Jack. Keeping as much of himself tucked into the bathroom as possible, Jack reached out and gripped the knob. It turned easily in his hand.
Bullets ripped through the centre of the door and splinters and chunks of wood lacerated the opposite wall like grenade fragments. Jack snatched his hand back. As soon as the gunfire stopped, he kicked the door open.
In the instant it took to bring his gun up on target, Jack noted a box spring and frame; clothes littered the floor, and heavy drapes dimmed the room. The scant light silhouetted a man wearing only a pair of unbuttoned jeans. His bare scalp and black skin glistened with sweat as he frantically tried to work the action of the assault rifle he held.
“Drop the gun, motherfucker!” Mason’s voice sounded strained, but his hands were rock steady. As was his shotgun. “Drop it or die!”
“Mason! What the fuck is going on down there?” Tank shouted frantically.
“We’re good, Tank,” Mason called back, his eyes still on the gunman. “There’s no room down here for anyone else.”
The gunman was frozen, his hands gripping his weapon and his eyes flickering between Jack and Mason.
“Just open your hands and let it drop. If it even twitches in this direction, you die. Just let it drop. Simple as that.”
The silence stretched out. Was the gunman working up his nerve? Sweat ran down Jack’s face, into his eyes. He didn’t blink — he didn’t want to lose his target, even for a heartbeat. His shoulders were starting to ache with the effort of holding the Glock out at arm’s length. How much longer would he have to kneel here?
A lifetime was crammed into every heartbeat.
Slowly, so slowly, the gunman drew himself erect, his gun pointed down. Defiance was bright in his eyes.
“Don’t,” Mason warned. “Just drop the gun. Now.”
With a sneer, the gunman snapped open his hands and the rifle clattered to the floor.
“One of the key rules to policing: for every minute of excitement, there’s at least one corresponding hour of paperwork.” Mason cast a satisfied eye across the empty apartment. “You did good work today, Jack.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Jack and the detective were alone in the apartment. The gunman had been cuffed and the bedroom searched; the hours of corresponding work had begun.
It turned out there had been no dancing hippos in the living room, just three guys and one busy crack whore. She was doing the guys in exchange for some Black and there was more than enough to go around; the delivery man was pumping away when the police came through the door and his merchandise was stacked neatly on the coffee table. Along with the crack and several thousand dollars in cash, Mason’s team found three handguns and a shotgun, all loaded and ready to go. If the fools assigned to the crack house had not been paying attention to the whore’s wasted body, the entry could have gone sour in a very bad way. But it hadn’t, and the only one to get off any shots — not including the delivery man; apparently, the sudden explosion of police officers into the apartment had triggered another, smaller, explosion — had been the one with the faulty assault rifle.
The bodies had all been hauled off to 51, where Mason and his crew would interrogate them.
“I’ve hopes for the whore talking. I figure she’ll want to avoid being associated with a large amount of crack and firearms, but I doubt she’ll have anything useful to give us. The next best bet is the gunman. He’s facing attempted murder charges along with all the rest and he’s looking at a long stint behind bars. Might be we can work out a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Mason gave a satisfied smile. “And drop the ‘sir,’ Jack. It’s Rick. Sy was right about you. Once you’ve done a year or so in the division, learned the streets, there’ll be a spot in Major Crime for you if you want it.”
“Absolutely. Thank you.”
Taft stuck his head into the apartment. “Rick, Toronto Housing’s here to replace the doors.”
“That was fast, for a change. Tell them we’re done. They can get to work whenever they’re ready.”
“Got it.” Taft disappeared.
“Where’s Sy, Jack?”
“He went to get the car. Said he’d meet me out front.”
“Do me a favour, will you? I want to get this baby to the station —” Mason hefted the gunman’s AK-47 “— and get started on everything. Can you hang tight till Housing takes over?”
“No problem.” Like Mason had to ask. After the offer of a spot in MCU, Jack would have volunteered to replace the doors himself.
“While you’re waiting, maybe give the place a final once-over. Make sure we didn’t leave anything behind. It’s embarrassing when Housing calls us to pick up a memo book or a bag of evidence we forgot.”
“Sure thing.”
“Tell Sy we’re ordering pizza back at the office.” He contemplated the weapon in his hands. “You know we got lucky today, don’t you? If this gun
hadn’t jammed. . . .” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.
“Yeah, I know.”
Mason laughed. “Thank God for cheap ammunition, huh?”
“I’m sure my wife will see it that way.”
Mason nodded. “See you back at the office.”
Alone in the apartment, Jack drew a deep breath and let it out slowly between pursed lips. If the gun hadn’t jammed. . . . But it had and the good guys had won and no one had got shot. Jack was the only one sporting any injuries. His left forearm had some heavy scratches and minor cuts from the splintered bedroom door. Jack had dismissed them, but Tank had insisted on calling an ambulance.
“You don’t know what type of filth or disease was on that door,” was his reasoning and the medics agreed. So Jack’s arm was wrapped in pristine white gauze from wrist to elbow. Karen was going to freak when she saw it.
Have to remember to take it off before I get home. But it sure makes for a hell of a story. Another keeper, as Sy would say.
Jack wandered through the tiny kitchen, as filthy as the rest of the apartment, looking for anything that should have gone to the station. The whole place had been thoroughly searched, so he gave the kitchen a simple visual inspection. In the living room, he saw discarded latex gloves on the floor, little patches of blue floating in a sea of old take-out and other garbage. In the smaller bedroom, he saw nothing but garbage and used condoms. The bathroom, thankfully, had also proved fruitless.
Jack froze in the doorway to the master bedroom, at first thinking he was having some sort of post-traumatic flashback to the shooting. But the man standing in the bedroom was on this side of the bed and he wasn’t holding an assault rifle. True, he was black and bald, like the gunman, but he wore shorts, a Toronto Raptors jersey and a pair of black leather gloves.
The man seemed as surprised as Jack to find someone else in the apartment. Their faces wore identical expressions of shock and their stances — knees slightly flexed, arms held motionless away from the body, shoulders rounded — were also comically similar. They both looked like a base runner getting ready to steal second.
Jack was the first to break for second. “Okay, buddy. I don’t know where you were hiding, but right now you’re under arrest.”
Jack stepped into the room and his movement shattered the stillness in the other man. He yanked up his shirt and Jack spotted the handgun an instant before the man grabbed it. Had the man been on the far side of the bed, Jack would have gone for his own gun, but he was so close that Jack’s first instinct was to tackle him. He lunged forward, driving hard with his legs to generate as much power as he could in the short rush.
Jack was three strides from him when everything dropped into slow motion. He watched the man’s gloved fingers curl around the butt, the index finger slide over the trigger.
Two strides away. Jack saw the muscles in the man’s forearm flex as he tightened his grip, noted the gun was a semi-automatic as it began to emerge from the waistband, its dull black finish in stark contrast to the vibrant red of the shorts.
One stride. The gun pulled free with a final snap of the waistband — Fuck me, it’s huge! — and Jack was amazed to see the shorts ripple like scarlet water as the waistband slapped back against the man’s flat stomach. The gun rose.
Time slammed back into full speed as Jack’s shoulder took the man in the gut and they both crashed back onto the box spring. The mattress lay on the floor where it had been tossed during the search like a drunk who had slid out of bed. The springs squealed in protest as they landed, Jack on top with both hands clamped around the gunman’s hand, trapping the pistol between them.
The gunman’s free left hand was pummelling Jack in the side of his head, but lying on his back the gunman couldn’t generate any power. How long before he decided to go for Jack’s throat or shove a finger in his eye?
The voice of a defensive tactics trainer from the college was suddenly in Jack’s head. Do whatever you can during the fight to distract them. Knee, stomp, bite, whatever you have to do to win.
Jack stared down at the man’s face and realized the man — boy, really — couldn’t have been older than eighteen. Sorry, kid. Jack butted him squarely on the nose and felt something snap. The kid howled in pain and Jack took the opportunity to shift his grip on the gun hand. His left hand gripped the kid’s wrist and his right hand wrapped around the hand from the back. Pulling the forearm upright, Jack leaned his weight down on the trapped hand.
It was a trick a girlfriend had taught him back in university. An ergonomics major, she had shown him how a person’s fist will automatically open if it is bent toward the forearm.
Jack used it now, forcing the hand down. He would either break the grip or break the wrist. Either was fine with him.
“Let go of the gun, or I’ll break your wrist. Let go now!”
The kid continued to scream wordlessly, but his hand popped open and the gun dropped onto his stomach.
Thank you, Kathleen.
Jack batted the gun away. He flipped the now unresisting kid onto his stomach and reached for his cuffs. The handcuff pouch was empty. His cuffs were at the station on his buddy with the assault rifle.
“Ow! Lemme go! Lemme go!” The kid was full-on wailing now.
“Shut up, I’m not hurting you. Just lie still.”
Jack pulled out his radio and prayed Sy still had his on the tactical channel they had all used during the warrant. If Sy had dialled back to 51 band or had his radio off, then Jack would have a hell of a time retuning his radio while the kid thrashed under him.
“Sy! You out there? Sy! Damn it.”
Jack holstered his radio and leaned down to speak to the kid, keeping his arm trapped. “Shut up and listen to me!” He had to shout to be heard over the kid’s cries. “You have to lie still. If you lie still, I’ll let you up.”
The kid stopped as abruptly as an unplugged radio. “Y-you’ll lemme . . . go?” he managed between sobs.
“Yeah, I will.” Eventually. What kind of gunman cries like a baby when he’s arrested? Jack was beginning to have some questions regarding the kid’s mental state.
Those were the magic words. The kid’s sobbing dried up almost as fast as his fight had stopped. “Okay. My nose hurts. Are you a real policeman?” This was asked with the simple, straightforward innocence of a child and Jack finally clued in to whom he was arresting.
Oh, fuck me.
“Sorry, guys, you missed the pizza,” Kris greeted Jack and Sy when they finally made it to the Major Crime office. “We were going to save you some, but Tank likes cold pizza.”
Tank smiled jovially. “It’s true, I do.” The Sumo Viking was sitting at another desk with a mound of Black in front of him.
“You could have left some for them,” Kris berated him.
“There was just a little bit left, guys. It wouldn’t have been enough for the two of you.”
“There was a whole pizza!”
“Like I said. . . .” Tank took cover behind the crack when she pelted a marker at him. It missed him and pinged off a filing cabinet. Tank cautiously rose. “Sheesh. She gets bitchy when she’s dieting.”
“It’s okay. We stopped for take-out chicken on the way back.” Sy headed for an unoccupied desk and Jack sat opposite him.
The MCU, like every office on the station’s second floor, was too small for the unit’s needs. A half dozen desks, shelving units and filing cabinets created a mini maze. RICI photos — mug shots — of various criminals were tacked up on bulletin boards and any available wall space held motorcycle or movie posters, Stallone’s Cobra holding centre stage.
Taftmore strolled into the office, a Coke in one hand and a vending machine Danish in the other. “There he is! Hey, Warren, heard you beat up a retard. Next time someone pulls a gun on you, make sure it’s real before you bust his nose.”
Jack scowled, intent on his dinner.
“Hey, Taft,” Sy called.
When Taftmore turned, a gun wa
s pointed at his face. “Whoa!” he yelped, instinctively dropping to a crouch. Then he laughed. “Oh, I get it. That the gun the retard had?”
“The politically correct term is developmentally delayed,” Sy informed him. “Yes, it is, and you couldn’t tell the difference either. And you were a hell of a lot closer than Jack was.”
Kris asked to see the gun and Sy tossed it to her, ignoring Taftmore’s reaching hand. She whistled softly as she examined it. “This looks real. I’d shoot anyone who pointed it at me. The only way you can tell is by the feel of it and if you waited long enough to feel it you’d probably end up dead. Any idea why the kid was carrying it?”
“Because he’s a gangsta. Or likes to pretend he is.”
Kris shook her head in disbelief and tossed the gun back to Sy. “That would be a stupid way to die. Good thing he was as close to you as he was, Jack.”
Jack nodded, still too busy eating to talk.
“What’s his mental age?” Kris asked.
Sy shrugged. “Seven. Or thereabouts. After we took him to the hospital, we asked him why he’d been in the apartment, but the hospital was a fascinating new world for him. He didn’t even care about his nose anymore. We got in touch with a cousin, who came down for him. His parents are both dead, apparently.”
“What’s the cousin like?”
Sy snorted. “Typical street shithead. Three guesses on where the kid gets his gangster motivation from.”
Mason blew into the office, a sour expression creasing his face. “Good, you’re back. Taftmore, why aren’t you doing any work?”
He held up his Coke and Danish. “I just went to get —”
“I don’t give a fuck. Get to work.” The big detective dropped into a chair. “None of them are saying a thing and the whore doesn’t know anything,” he announced disgustedly. “Now that everyone’s here, I’m going to bring this up once and leave it at that. I’m not even going to ask who searched the bedroom, but whoever it was didn’t think about checking inside the box spring. Rookie mistake, people. Now, did you figure out who the kid is?”
Sy looked to his younger partner, giving him the opportunity to speak, but Jack was busy with his fries. Sy answered. “The name I gave you over the phone, Sean Jacobs, turns out to be real, but what his connection to the apartment is he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell us. And he isn’t smart enough to lie.” Sy flipped open his memo book. “He did call the shooter ‘Uncle Jamie.’ I’ve got the guy’s name here somewhere.”
