Good.
Chuck always dressed in black — black sweatshirt, pants, shoes, gloves, cap. He walked behind the stores, sticking to the alleys, moving with a knowledge that only thirty plus years on the beat could instill. He saw no one and no one saw him as he walked toward The Dirty Derringer.
It was hot out tonight, like it had been every night this summer. He stopped about twenty yards from the back of Derringer’s. From here he had a good view of the back alley where many of the girls would take their johns for a quickie.
He waited — watching.
Twenty minutes later three men came out the back of the sex club. Hookers weren’t the only ones that used the alley.
They made their way around the corner to the east, pushing into a darkened doorway. Chuck recognized one of the men. He’d arrested him a few times; petty stuff; theft from motor vehicles, garage burglaries, shoplifting. He couldn’t quite remember the punk’s name…Patterson…Peterson…something with a ‘son’ in it. Chuck wasn’t great with names but he never forgot a face.
Chuck continued to watch. From here he could see everything.
Dumpsters stuffed with refuse clogged the alley, filling the air with their fetid perfumes. The hard concrete and asphalt were slimed with greases and oils and arcane mixtures of liquid wastes that ran from garbage cans and junked cars and dripped from rusted fire escapes and warped, mold covered doors.
A tongue of flame lit in the doorway and one of the men held a burnt and dirty spoon over the fire, moving it in careful slow circles.
Gripping the cap Chuck pulled it down over his face; a ski mask, with eyeholes and a mouth opening, like robbers used. Sweat soaked into the mask and shirt, the temp running a balmy ninety-one, but that was the price of doing business.
The man with the spoon, a boy really in his mid-twenties, looked up as Chuck tapped him on the head. The other two looked up at him too. Chuck hit the boy on the exact spot he had tapped with his finger, only with the sap. The boy went straight down, the spoon spilling its melted heroin down his front.
Chuck had considered bringing the baseball bat instead of the sap, but decided to go for the less conspicuous weapon.
Before either of the other men could react, Chuck whipped the lead powder encased leather pouch against the temple of the next closest; Patterson…Peterson…whatever…and it connected with a liquid sounding smack. He went down too.
Number three wasn’t going to be so easy. He reached under his shirt; the giveaway. Dealers almost always had weapons, usually guns. Chuck had a gun too, in a pancake holster set in his waistband in the middle of his back, but he didn’t want to use it if he didn’t have too. Not because the gun could be traced, it couldn’t. He’d gotten it off a punk a decade earlier and never reported it. He had a lot of guns like that. Cops used to call them drop guns in the old days because they’d drop them at a crime scene when it needed to look like a suspect had had a gun. Chuck had never used one for that purpose, but he always brought one when he went out on nights like this. Because there was always the chance he’d run into someone with a gun; like now, but guns were noisy, messy. People called the police when they heard gunfire, even in Gunwood, and so far Chuck had gotten away without using one. He wanted to keep it that way.
Chuck threw the sap into the dealer’s face. It hit him in the lips and he fell back against the door, groaning. The gun fell, the dealer groggily reaching for it, but Chuck struck first, catching the man a glancing blow with his knee. He’d aimed for the man’s face but only caught him in the shoulder. The dealer wrapped his long arms around Chuck’s waist and pushed into him. Chuck’s feet got tangled up in the unconscious bodies lying around and they both spilled to the ground. Chuck smacked his elbow hard on the gritty concrete and it hurt like the devil. He swung a right at the dealer’s face, but missed and felt a pretty good hook catch him on the cheek. Chuck had always been able to take a punch, a quality that had saved him in many a fight over the years, and he rolled with this one as best he could.
The dealer, a lanky white guy with monkey arms, swung wildly. Chuck blocked most of the blows, but a few made it through his guard, clipping him in the face and head and neck. They were arm punches, with no real weight behind them, more an annoyance than any real danger, but it was hard to defend from your back and Chuck couldn’t allow this to take too long. The other two might wake up, or someone might come to investigate the commotion, or a prostitute might come back with a john.
Chuck hit him in the gut, then shoved him off to the side. The dealer fell, rolled, made it to his feet. He charged back in and Chuck kicked him in the face. He felt the man’s nose smash like a stepped on spider. He kicked again, grazing his forehead, and then he shot free, scrabbling backwards until he could turn over so he could gain his feet. By the time he got up the dealer made it up too. Thinner than Chuck by maybe thirty pounds, taller too and a lot younger; he charged, arms thrashing.
Experience won the day. Chuck stood his ground and sent a jab straight into the broken nose. The dealer’s head rocked back, blood flowing. Chuck didn’t hesitate. He moved in, snapping three more jabs to the same spot — the punches coming from the hip through his body and shoulder with a lot of power — then went low to the belly with a hook and then another hook higher, to the jaw. The dealer went down like his friends; out cold.
Breathing hard, Chuck went through his pockets. He found a thick roll of bills in one. He went to the second man he’d KO’d and found another wad of money as well as his driver’s license — Porterson — hey, he’d been close. In the pocket of the boy that had the spoon he found a wallet with six dollars in it. He took it. He also found several buttons of heroin on the other two. He ground them into the asphalt with his heel. He took the dealer’s gun too.
By the time he got back to the car his elbow screamed with pain and stretched the fabric of his sweat shirt with swelling. He sat for a few minutes, knowing he should leave. His portable radio lay silent on the passenger seat next to him so the police were not yet enroute, but still — safer to clear the scene. He tossed the ski mask into his gym bag, along with the dealer’s gun and all the money. The back end of an aluminum bat stuck out of the bag.
His breathing still wasn’t completely under control and his forehead felt slick with sweat. He suddenly slumped in the seat; completely drained. He didn’t remember ever being so tired.
I’m getting too old for this, he thought.
Three — he hadn’t expected to come up against three at the same time. He shook his head thinking, I should have taken the bat.
40
Dominic Elkins
* * *
Banished
* * *
The call came out as a possible disturbance at The Dirty Derringer. Dominic looked over at Quinn Taylor; raised his eyebrows.
“Okay to go code?” If it had been Sarah sitting there he wouldn’t have to ask, but Taylor was a bit squeamish when it came to his own personal safety. And driving fast, as he’d told Dominic twice already tonight, would get you killed faster than a bullet.
“Any disturbance at a dive like the Derringer warrants us getting there as fast as possible. So, yes, go code.”
Sarah had traded shifts with Taylor, handing Dominic off to him. Dominic figured she needed some time because of last night, but he was more infatuated with her than ever. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Her lips — her kiss — like electricity — well it had been electricity, but aside from that, it had been incredible, like a bolt of pure raw emotional energy that charged his nerves and senses to an almost supernatural level.
He’d had a tough time getting to sleep after that, of course the Taser charge his system had endured probably didn’t help either.
Once asleep the dreams had been really bad and waking up difficult.
His chest and stomach muscles were sore; another reminder of the electric blast. He grinned, thinking back on the kiss; well worth it. He’d take ten more to get another.
Driving t
hrough city traffic was cake for Dominic. Compared to the streets he’d had to navigate in Afghanistan, flocked with people and carts and animals and all kinds of junk, not to mention having to dodge RPGs, IEDs, VBIEDs and small arms fire from rooftops. He shut off the siren and pulled into the parking lot of Derringer’s. A few prostitutes were hanging around out front. They made eyes at him as he got out of the car. A short chubby girl wearing trashed out jean shorts about three sizes too small for her and a see through sequined blouse said something to a taller girl with small breasts and long legs. The taller girl looked back at him and threw him a big wink, then both girls laughed. Dominic gave them a half smile, shaking his head. He looked back at his FTO for the night, but Quinn didn’t seem to notice that anything had happened.
Inside Dominic and Quinn were ushered to a back room by one of the bouncers. The club blasted music so loud it sounded like white noise, but once they were past the stripper’s dressing room and another two hallways, lined with closed doors and hung heavy with cigarette smoke, things got quieter. They ended up in a small hole at the very back of the building. The walls were filmed with decade’s worth of yellow-brown nicotine. There were four men squeezed into the room. Two were sitting, holding ice bags to their faces. A third guy, lanky with long arms, leaned against a wall, his face a mess. His nose was badly mashed and he looked like he might have an orbital fracture. He held a wet, bloody towel to his nose. The last guy was short and fat, his gut looking like a keg rather than a six-pack. He had a beard and long greasy hair and chewed on a fat unlit cigar.
“What happened?” Dominic asked the group.
The short, greasy, fat guy spoke first. “I’m the manager, George Tommy. These guys got mugged out back of my club. The tall one works for me. The other two are…friends of his.”
“Okay,” said Dominic, turning toward the tall one. “What happened?”
“Me and these guys was out back having a smoke when this great big guy jumps us. He took them two out quick like. Me, I got in a couple of shots, but then he like boxed the crap out of me.”
“Boxed?”
“Yeah, you know, like boxers.” He threw a couple of mock punches with one hand, the other still holding the towel against his bleeding nose.
“Any idea why?”
“Duh,” said the lanky guy. “He was robbin’ us.”
“What did he rob you of?”
The lanky guy looked at the other two, then at the manager. “Our money and stuff.”
Dominic nodded. “How much money and what other ‘stuff’?”
The lanky guy sniffed, looked around. “’Bout seventeen hundred bucks all together.”
“That’s a lot of money. What was the other stuff?”
He looked at Dominic, sniffed. “Nothin’ important.”
Dominic nodded. “Look guys, I’m not stupid. This guy stole your drugs, and your drug money, right?”
Sniff-sniff. “We don’t do drugs. But what’s that got to do with anything anyways?”
Dominic ignored the question. “So what did he look like?”
“Taller than you, shorter than me. Kind of beefy. Dressed in black. Black gloves. Ski mask. He had some kind of weapon, like brass knucks or somethin’, hit Buddy there on the head with it, then threw it into Mac’s face. Punched like a boxer. He was pretty strong but he was like…kind of old I think.”
“Old? How old?”
“I don’t know. He had that mask on. But when I was wrestlin’ with him he just felt…I don’t know…kind of old, like maybe fifty or sixty or somethin’ like that. But he was still pretty strong for an old guy. I could have taken him if it weren’t for that boxin’ stuff.”
“Look,” said the manager, “it’s that Vigilante Clubber guy, ain’t it? Gotta be. There’s a reward for any info on this turd, right? That’s why I had them call; we don’t want to press no charges or nothin’. We just want the reward.”
Quinn stepped in here. “The reward’s for any information that leads to an arrest.”
He chomped on his cigar. “Well hey, this could help, right?”
“Maybe,” said Quinn. “My partner will get your information and if anything you tell us helps us catch him, you might be able to get a percentage of the reward.”
“What kind of percentage? How much?”
“That would depend on how much it helped and how much the reward is up to before we catch him.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. Only nothing happened here in the club, you got that, right? I don’t need the liquor inspectors coming down on me for this. They’re worse than them Nazis in the IRS.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Quinn.
“I’d like to see the crime scene,” said Dominic.
“The what?” asked the manager.
“Where it happened,” said Quinn.
“Sure, sure, it’s right out back.” He headed out.
Quinn gripped Dominic’s arm. “Easy…it could be a trap.” He tapped his badge. “A target, remember? Watch for ambush points, snipers, explosives.”
Dominic nodded, turned, rolled his eyes and followed the short, fat, greasy manager out the door. The first thing he saw was an emaciated woman, probably barely out of her teens but looking about fifty, in a thong and a bikini top, undoing the belt of an ancient looking Mexican street person drinking from a bottle only partially hidden in a brown paper bag. They were in a doorway across the alley. The Mexican’s hair, long, tangled and white matched his beard. His skin looked more like old leather than anything human, with deep wrinkles that sunk like crevices into the folds of his face. His eyes were filmed in layers of milky cataracts and his lips were crusted with black-brown tobacco stains. When he saw Dominic he hefted the brown bag in a mock salute and grinned, showing toothless gums. He said something in Spanish that Dominic didn’t understand then broke out in a garbled cackle that sounded like gargling broken glass. The whore didn’t respond at all, either to Dominic’s presence or the bum’s cackling, she just kept working on the belt until she finally got the ratty old thing undone. Then she started working on the buttons of his pants, as though people bursting in on the most private of acts was as natural as the idea of doing what she was doing in an alley rather than a bedroom.
The manager stepped forward, throwing a shrug towards Dominic. “Hey there, you two, what are you doing there? Go get a room fer crying out loud.” He looked back at Dominic and now Quinn as well, since he just made it outside. “Kids.” He tossed a few dollars at the couple and both scrambled to pick up the bills and then scampered out of the alley. The manager shook his head, shrugged again and led them to the now deserted doorway. The lanky white guy with the monkey arms and broken nose followed and pointed at the darkened area.
“We was right there,” he said pointing down the street. “And the old guy came up from that way…least I think so.”
Dominic checked the doorway and surrounding asphalt and concrete. Obviously the crime scene had been contaminated, still he might find something. And there it was, just like that. He pulled out a slick black glove from his back pocket and put it on. He reached down into the shadows, picked up a six-inch strap of leather with a nice chunk of weight to it. Dominic had never actually seen one of these, but he’d heard of them and how effective they could be in delivering a good thumping.
Holding it by the strap he dangled it in front of Quinn.
“A sap,” said the FTO. “Haven’t seen one of those in a while.” He smiled. “Good job, Rook.
Dominic grinned back, then inwardly shook his head. His FTO wasn’t wearing his badge. He’d taken it off and put it in his pocket before coming out to the alley.
Quinn saw where his trainee was looking, looked there himself, then looked up around the buildings that towered above them. He pointed up. “Never know,” he said, “could be snipers.”
41
Sarah Hampton
* * *
Big Mike
* * *
Sarah wasn’t used to dayshift. Things
were different. There were people everywhere, walking, driving, jogging, eating, sitting, talking. On graves the only people out were milkmen, paper boys, taxi drivers, whores, johns, cops and bad guys, but it wasn’t just the people, there were other things too. Traffic. So much traffic. On graves you didn’t see much traffic. If you needed to get somewhere, you got there — fast, but on days you had to creep along behind a line of cars the length of the city. It felt more like being on the back end of a train than in a patrol car. The calls were different too. Graves was the action time; calls came in as they were happening — burglaries, robberies, rapes, shootings, dom vio’s, bar fights, stabbings, murders, drug deals, assaults, arsons — all the good stuff. But on days most of the calls, in the morning at least, were leftovers from the night before — mostly thefts from motor vehicles, or garages, or purses, or wallets — just discovered. Girls reporting rapes that happened at parties where they drank too much. Guys reporting fights that happened at parties where they drank too much. Domestic assaults that happened after parties where the husbands and or wives drank too much. In a word — boring. And of course there was the sun itself. Everything looked different in daylight; landmarks, buildings, people, cars, colors. Everything so bright and clear; it made her feel kind of lost. It was hot too. She’d thought the nights were hot, and they were, the hottest in Gunwood’s recorded history, but nothing compared to days. She found herself sweating under her vest until her undershirt sopped. All in all she felt like a vampire dumped from a cozy coffin into the flesh devouring sunlight. Very annoying.
I brought it on myself, she thought.
She’d traded shifts with Quinn because of what happened with Dominic. He’d kissed her — kissed her. She was his FTO, not to mention older, and they were both cops on duty; completely unprofessional. Of course tasing him wasn’t exactly professional either, but she had to do something.
Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set Page 87
