Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set

by Gordon Carroll

  “Just don’t get yourself or anyone else killed. You learn to do these stops the right way and we’ll call it good for the night.” The rook grinned from ear to ear. Lord, so young. She remembered back when she first started and wondered if she had been this giddy. These days all that mattered was John Doe, but even before that she’d been on the verge of burnout. Because even though the old saying that every call is different is true, equally true is that after a couple of decades all the calls seem the same. Thirty thousand alarms, a hundred murders, a thousand rapes, a couple of thousand robberies, five times as many burglaries, domestic violence out the ying-yang, fights, thefts, stolen cars, things stolen out of cars, arsons, child abuse, destroyed property, warrants, drunks, prostitutes, suicides and traffic-traffic-traffic and court-court-court. Until every call melted into every other call — the faces and hurts and blood and wounds and tears and anger and hate and sadness and lying and rage and depression and alcohol and drugs and knives and guns and hopelessness and helplessness — folding in and over and twisting and blending into a gray smear that blurred the images of right and wrong and duty and necessity.

  The rookie pulled the car into a sharp “U” turn, cutting across five lanes between the two directions of Colorado Boulevard and sped up behind a souped-up Camaro with spoilers and shiny gold spoked wheels.

  “What have you got?” she’d let her mind drift.

  “Head light out,” he said. He reached for the emergency light switch.

  Sarah put her hand over his, stopping him. “Wait. You’re in no hurry.” How many are in the car?”

  “I’m not sure, at least two.”

  “Go ahead and clear the plate before you stop him. If everything’s cool then you can pick your spot and light him up.”

  “Right, right, clear the plate first when I’ve got the chance, got it.” He punched the plate into the computer. Sarah watched him closely. Good concentration and divided attention. No swerving or angling to the left or right as he looked at the screen. Maybe a little closer than he should be to the suspect vehicle, but overall, good. A cop had to be able to listen to multiple radios, work a computer screen, a GPS, a cell phone, give out information and keep from crashing all at the same time.

  “What’s that?” asked the rook.

  Sarah swiveled the screen so she could see. She grinned. “Jackpot. Stolen car.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah, baby. So what’s ya gonna do?”

  “I don’t think you’ve actually taught me this yet.”

  She laughed, feeling the excitement build up inside her. Maybe she wasn’t totally burned out after all.

  “Good answer, Rook. But what do you think you should do?”

  “Pull them over?” he said, his voice making it a question.

  “Is that a question or an answer?”

  He said it again, this time with authority. “Pull them over.” He reached for the switch again, and again she stopped him.

  “Hold on, Tiger. Drop back just a little ways so if they slam on the brakes we don’t ram up their tailpipe and set off our airbags. Now remember, we’re in no hurry yet. So slow down your nerves and think. If you light them up and they run, what then? Can we chase on a stolen car? It’s just a property crime so even if we started chasing them as soon as it became dangerous for the public we’d have to shut down or the sergeant would shut us down. And most car thieves do run, so how can we stop them from taking off before they even try?”

  “Ram them?”

  “I like your enthusiasm, but no, we can’t just ram them. Always try the easy way first. There will be plenty of time for ramming or PIT-ing if the easy way doesn’t work. So, first call it out that you have a possible stolen vehicle and get some other cars in the area. We’re almost in Denver’s territory, so have dispatch notify them too. Denver loves to play and they’ve got about a thousand cars on duty so we’ll get plenty of help. Oh, and also get our K9 started this way in case they bail and try to run.”

  Dominic picked up the mic and did as told. The Camaro bumped up its speed to about fifty and started to pull away. It was four in the morning and traffic was light, but there were still a few cars driving on both sides of the road.

  Sarah sat back and watched. She wanted to see how his instincts would play it out. He let them gain a little distance, just as she would have. It was like fishing, letting the line spool out for a bit so the fish wouldn’t realize its fate until too late.

  Three Gunwood cruisers pulled in behind Dominic, waiting for his move. They were all in the center lane of Colorado Boulevard, just passing Cherry Creek going north. Dispatch aired that Denver had five cars on the way less than a minute out. They also aired that the car matched the description of a suspect vehicle in an armed robbery that just occurred in Littleton. Dominic looked at Sarah and she saw the excitement on his face, although she also saw a little worry — good. This wasn’t all fun and games. There were real dangers and real responsibilities.

  “Okay,” she said. “Have two of our trailing cars move in on either side of the Camaro, and the third can race ahead and cut in front, to box him in. Then light him up when you’re ready.”

  Dominic nodded and gave out the instructions. All three of the trailing cars broke and took their positions like they’d done it a thousand times — which of course they had. His hand went back to the emergency light switch and this time Sarah didn’t stop him. The red and blues strobed powerfully into the night, flashing and splashing off everything. And Sarah realized she was more than just excited, she was still in love with it all. The car might try to smash its way through. It might swerve into the side cars or slam on its brakes. The guys inside might be bangers, they might be killers, they might be druggies so hopped up they might do anything, or they might be fourteen year old juvies taking their mom’s ride out for a spin. But right now none of that mattered. What did matter was the chase and the capture and that she was here, right in the mix of it, right where the action was. The possibility of danger and death and the chance to prove herself better than her prey. To win! It was still exhilarating, even after all these years. The adrenalin still pumped, maybe not as hard as it once had, but she still felt the buzz, the power, the ecstasy. And even better she had someone to share it with, because she saw the same effect working in Dominic.

  The car ahead slammed on its brakes; the three surrounding cars did the same and if the rook’s reflexes had been a half second slower they would have plowed into the Camaro’s tail with enough force to set off both of the police cruiser’s airbags. But once again Sarah saw that he was cool — so cool under pressure. He stomped the brakes hard, steering through the computer-controlled slide of the ABS braking system, stopping a dime’s thickness from the car in front of them.

  And that’s when everything started to go wrong.

  25

  Cinnomon Twist

  * * *

  Hunted

  * * *

  Four in the morning and Cinnamon stared out her window loving the sea of lights that stretched out below and before her. Somewhere to the north she heard the sound of police sirens, even from all the way down there and through the glass. Between the gaps of lower buildings she could make out sparking instances of blue and red — a lot of them — something big going on down there on Colorado Boulevard. She wondered if Sammy — Detective Rothstein — was involved. Probably not, she thought. He’d been working in the daytime and all the cops she’d known always worked shifts, so he was probably home in bed. Alone, she wondered? Again, probably. He didn’t wear a wedding ring and he looked too geeky to shack up with someone. Still, he was kind of cute, in a Don Knotts meets Steve Urkel sort of way. And of course — he wanted her. He wanted her bad. Most men did, although she disgusted some men, she would see them look away from her, their mouths scrunched up in that special way as if they’d just tasted rancid butter or curdled milk. But Sammy registered in the other group. His eyes had eaten her up and he’d practically fallen over himself to t
ry and please her; a good thing because she thought she really might need his help. She was scared. Two new emails were waiting for her when she got home from the club, two more people from her past; both dead.

  Someone was hunting her.

  She considered calling Sammy, he’d given her his personal cell number, but she decided to wait. She didn’t want to seem too eager or too scared, not yet.

  If there was one thing Cinnamon knew how to do it was how to manipulate men. She was a pro — no — better than that; the best. She was the Mick Jagger of manipulation. The Celine Dion, the Dale Earnhardt, the Chuck Yeager, the Tiger Woods. And she knew that if it had been her that Tiger had cheated with he’d never have gone back to his wife or porn stars or golf again.

  She walked to the coffee table and took a shot of George T. Stagg Kentucky Bourbon, it burned all the way down. Then she snuffed a line of the white lady, half up each nostril, it too burned, but in a totally different way.

  She was still scared, but only a little.

  She lit up a cigarette, her fifth of the day, she was trying to quit. The idea of having one of her boobs lopped off did not appeal to her at all. But the stupid things tasted so good and they were so incredibly soothing that it made it very hard. She took in a drag, let the smoke’s weight settle softly to the bottom of her lungs, let it stream out her nose and past her lips. Heaven.

  So who was hunting her, and what did he want? She tried to think back on all her lovers and all her johns, nearly an impossible task. Of course there’d been problems with some of the men over the years — no one could please everyone, but not that many. Most — the vast majority of her customers, had left fully satisfied. As for old boyfriends… well, she always tried to leave on good terms.

  Then there was Barney Marko. He’d acted like everything was okay and never showed a hint of knowing about the stolen money. But there had been a look, a certain shine in his eyes, that last night, when she told him she was leaving. That look had frightened her because she thought it made him look a little unhinged, a little crazy. And a crazy Barney Marko was a very scary thing. She’d seen him do things to men, brutal things. And she’d heard of much worse. It was one of the reasons she decided to leave him — that, and the money and the control.

  But the emails — that just didn’t feel like Barney’s style. He might walk up and put a bullet in her head, or beat her to death with a baseball bat, but to warn her — to taunt her like this, it didn’t seem right, but if not him then who?

  The ember burned lava red as she took another long pull on the cigarette. She walked back to the window feeling the coke and the booze working their magic. The window stretched from the floor to the ceiling; otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to see over the sill. Below, the sirens still wailed and warbled and more and more strobing lights converged on the scene. Gunfire sounded, like firecrackers popping in the distance. Now she hoped that Sammy wasn’t down there. She didn’t want him to get hurt. She still needed him, or at least might need him.

  Picking up her cell she almost called him, but she stopped herself. She had to play this right. Working a man wasn’t particularly difficult so long as you understood the rules and followed them. That was the tricky part, following the rules; divorcing yourself from feelings of guilt and shame and decency so you could do the hard but necessary thing. Men had used her all her life. They had taken, abused and discarded her and gone on with their lives without a look back. But they had taught her, and she studied her lessons well. She’d learned to use their weapons against them with powerful results. No man would ever take advantage of her again. She would do the taking.

  So she thought of the geeky investigator as she stared down at his phone number glowing up at her from the phone and pondered the best course of action.

  Crackling gunfire grabbed her attention and when she looked down she saw flashing lights rushing to the scene from seemingly every corner of the city. Something big was happening down there.

  A thin smile played her lips and she touched Sammy’s number, sending the call to space so it could ricochet off a satellite and back down to the detective’s phone. He answered it on the first ring.

  “Detective Rothstein.” He sounded sleepy.

  She didn’t bother to introduce herself. “Are you working?”

  The sound of sleep disrupted vanished instantly. “Why, what happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m scared,” she said. “When I got home there were two more obituaries. I don’t know what to do.”

  A short pause. “I could come over.”

  Cinnamon took a long pull on the cigarette, held it, released it in a sigh before answering. “I’m sorry I woke you. I know I’m being silly, but nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I think…whoever it is…wants to kill me. I’m so scared.”

  “No, you’ll be okay.” A rustling sound in the background, like getting dressed while talking. “I’ll come over right now. We can have some coffee and talk through this.”

  “No,” she said, her voice a precisely calculated whisper. “No-no, I’m just being stupid. I’m so sorry I called. You should never have given me your number. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

  “Wait, don’t hang up,” he said. “Now listen, you are not being silly or stupid. These threats would scare anyone. You were right to call me. I want you to keep me up on everything, no matter what time. So wait for me. I’ll be there in just a few minutes. Wait for me.”

  “No, really, you shouldn’t come. I should have waited till morning. Besides, I didn’t call just about the email. I…I was worried about you.”

  Another pause and the rustling stopped. “Worried about me, why?”

  Cinnamon sucked the last out of her cigarette and watched the weird tale act out below. “Because something big is happening in your city. There are gunshots and police cars. I was afraid that maybe you were down there in the middle of it and I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  “Police cars? How many?”

  She stubbed out her cigarette in a fancy glass ashtray and looked again at the cars below. The coke and the Stagg were really playing with her head now making the flashing lights and gunshots seem surreal. “I think…all of them.”

  After he hung up she put on her PJs, snuggled under the covers, and slept the dreamless sleep of the innocent.

  Part IV

  26

  Enrico Da Vinci

  * * *

  Observation

  * * *

  Enrico watched Cinnamon Twist as she climbed into her tiny bed, pulled up the covers and turned off the lights. He touched the screen and his hidden camera switched from color to night vision, bringing out new details that were etched in green. He saw that she smiled angelically as she drifted off to sleep. As he watched he found himself smiling along with her. She was so… beautiful, yes that, but something else as well… something more… vital… poignant… powerful. It was what pushed him to track her down, kill those who had abused or injured her in the smallest way; her essence, her art.

  The blood of the Earth’s greatest artist flowed through his veins. Long ago he had harnessed the promise of that heritage, hammering his raw ability into a usable thing, like a blacksmith hammers iron and steel, shaping his talent, forging his genetics in the fires of training and study until the rough and unformed mass of his ancestry was heated and pounded and folded and hammered again and again until it emerged from the furnace as something that was no longer a useless blob of heated metal, but became instead an unstoppable juggernaut of death; the perfect weapon. Enrico saw himself as the keen edge of the samurai sword, the poison tip of the blow dart, the angled slant of the Tanto knife, the bowl of the hollow-point bullet. He was the executioner, the assassin, the Angel of Death. He knew art in every way it could be known, and yet he himself was not art, and it was this that made Cinnamon special over all other women.

  He’d arrived at DIA the day before. He shook his head at the monstrous blue stallion, i
ts eyes blazing red; thick veins coursing across its limbs and torso, and the strange tents that enclosed the airport. Perhaps that was the point — the whole structure — the entire theme of the place came down to exactly that — a giant circus.

  Enrico picked up his rental car and drove to the tall black apartment building that housed his target. He checked in, having reserved both rooms on either side and the room below Cinnamon’s expansive suite. He took a shower, ate a small meal, then made separate trips to each of the two rooms adjoining hers, drilling small holes with a very special electric drill that ran virtually silent. He then set a series of cameras and listening devises, all of which networked to the computer in the room he was staying in, directly below her. He chose that room because of its centrality to the electronic devises and because he wanted to be as close to her as possible.

  He could see into every room in her apartment. She’d slept through it all.

  He knew her schedule. Barney Marko had been having her tailed until yesterday and made all the data available to him via e-mail. He’d told Mr. Marko to end the tailing prior to his arrival. He never allowed anyone associated with a hit to see his face.

  At one-thirty that afternoon she awoke. Cinnamon walked about the room in pink and blue pajamas, no makeup, hair tousled. He switched cameras as she moved to the bathroom, emptied her water, brushed her teeth, took a shower, dressed, ate a bagel with cream cheese and coffee, checked her e-mail and left the apartment.

  Enrico felt no shame in watching her — she was his to do with what he would — instead watching her in these personal situations brought him closer to her; as though he were in the room and they were sharing an intimate moment.