Robert Crais - Free Fall

Ray grunted. “Mm-hmm. Imagine that.”

Cool T scrambled behind the Monte Carlo and we went to him. Ray said, “How you doing, Cool?”

“It burns like a sonofabitch.”

Pike examined the wound, then used part of Cool T’s shirt to bind it. “You’ll be fine.”

A couple of faces peeked around the jamb, and someone in the house yelled, “The fuck you doin’? Whatchu want?”

Ray yelled back. “My name is Ray Depente. We came for Akeem D’Muere and we want to see his chickenshit ass out here.”

A second voice in the house yelled, “Fuck you.” It was going to be one of those conversations.

Someone pulled the heavy guy out of the door, then a guy in a duster jumped forward, fired two pistol shots, then pulled the door closed.

Ray said, “You think they’ll call the police?”

We left Cool T sitting against the Monte Carlo’s wheel and gathered up the pipe and the gas cans and went to the house. We put the pipes across the door and wedged them behind the window bars on either side. As we did it we could hear voices inside. They were trying to figure out what we were up to. Joe Pike came back around the house. “Back door is sealed.”

“How about the windows?”

“No one’s getting out.”

Someone inside yelled, “The fuck you assholes want? Get away from here.” The closed door muffled the voice.

I stood to the right of the door, reached around, and pounded on it. A shotgun blast ripped through the door about where I should’ve been standing. I said, “Hey, Akeem. It’s time to pay up for James Edward Washington.”

Another blast came through the door.

“Gunfire is not meaningful discourse, Akeem.”

Another blast came through, this one very low.

I said, “Here’s the way it’s going to happen. Everybody’s going to put down their guns, and everybody’s going to come out one at a time, and then we’re going to tell the police what really happened to James Edward Washington. How does that sound?”

Akeem D’Muere shouted, “Are you on dope? Get the fuck out of my face.”

I said, “Akeem, I’m going to move in and set up house on your face.”

“You can’t get in here. Get the fuck away.”

“It’s not a question of us getting in, Akeem. The question is, can you get out?”

Ray Depente popped the top off of one of the gas cans and began splashing gas on the door and the windows and the sides of the house. The smell of it was strong and sharp in the still air.

Akeem said, “What the fuck you doin’ out there? What’s that smell?”

“We’re pouring gasoline on your house. You told the Washingtons that you were going to burn them out, didn’t you? We thought you’d appreciate the poetic justice of the moment.”

A different voice yelled, “Bullshit. You wouldn’t do that.”

Ray Depente said, “Watch.”

Ray finished with one can and started with another. Pike took the third can around to the rear. We could hear banging at the back of the house, but the pipes would hold. Across the street, a door opened and a man in his early seventies came out onto his porch and watched with his hands on his hips. He was smiling.

Inside, you could hear men moving through the house, and voices, and then the tar paper was abruptly torn off the front window and someone fired most of an AK-47’s magazine out into the ground at full auto. Ray Depente looked at me and grinned. “You think they gettin’ scared?”

“Uh-hunh.”

He grinned wider. “These pukes ain’t met scared.”

Joe Pike came back. “Ready.”

Ray Depente took a big steel Zippo lighter from his pocket, flipped open the top, and spun the wheel. He said, “Welcome to hell, assholes.” Then he touched the flame to the gasoline.

The eastern front corner of Akeem D’Muere’s fortified crack house went up with a whoosh. Ray and Pike moved around the house, tossing the smoke grenades in through the windows. The grenades had instant fuses, and in two seconds there would be so much smoke that you’d think you were in an inferno. The fire stayed at just one comer of the house, though, and didn’t spread. We’d placed the gasoline so that it would smell, but we’d also placed it so that the fire would be small and controlled. The people inside didn’t know that, though. There were shouts, and more shots, and someone banged on the front door, trying to get it open. Someone else started screaming for us to let him out, and smoke began to leak from windows and from around the front door. Across the street, more people came out of their houses to watch.

I shouted over the noise. “The guns come out first.”

“We can’t get the goddamn door open.”

“The window.” The smoke was making them choke.

More tar paper was pulled off the windows, and handguns and shotguns and AK-47s were shoved through the glass. Clouds of thick gray smoke billowed out with the guns.

Ray Depente found a garden hose, turned it on, and sprayed it on the fire. It didn’t put out the fire, but it cooled it some.

Someone inside said, “Let us out. Please.”

I looked at Ray. He nodded. He and Joe took up positions at the corners of the house.

“One at a time. Hands on your heads.”

“Man, I’ll put my hands up my ass you let me out of here.”

I unshipped the pipes, pulled open the door, and two men and two women stumbled out, jostling each other to get away from the smoke and the fire. Pike pushed them down and used the plastic restraints. Neither of the two guys was Akeem D’Muere.

Ray Depente yelled, “You wanna cook, that’s up to you.”

No one answered.

Ray looked at me and I held up three fingers and he nodded. Akeem, plus two others. They’d be hard cases, and they would’ve kept their guns. We could hear coughing.

Pike said, “Maybe they doubt our sincerity.”

Pike stayed with Cool T to watch the others, and Ray Depente and I went in after Akeem. We went in low and fast, pushing through the oily smoke, and found them in a short hall between the kitchen and a back bedroom. Akeem D’Muere was with a dopey-looking guy with sleepy eyes and another guy who looked like he could have played defensive line for the Raiders. They were coughing and rubbing at their eyes. They heard us, but the smoke was too thick for them to see us. The big guy shouted, “They’re inside,” and started swinging wild. He didn’t see anything, he was just swinging, and his first two punches hit the wall. I stepped outside and caught the joint of his left knee with a hard snap kick. The knee went and the big man made a gasping sound and fell. I followed him down and took his gun.

The dopey guy yelled, “I see the muthuhfuckuhs,” and started firing a Smith .40 somewhere up toward geosynchronous orbit. Akeem D’Muere pushed the dopey guy at us and ran toward the front of the house. Ray Depente slapped the dopey guy’s .40 to the outside, then hit him three fast times, twice in the chest and once in the neck, and the dopey guy fell.

Ray said, “Take his gun.” Ray was already after Akeem.

I grabbed the dopey guy’s gun, then used the plastic restraints as quickly as I could. I wanted to get to Akeem D’Muere before Ray got to him, but I didn’t make it. Two shots came from the living room, then a third, and I got there just as Ray Depente came up under D’Muere’s gun, twisted it free just as he had taught a thousand guys down at Camp Pendleton, then threw Akeem D’Muere through the open front door out into the yard. I went after them.

Akeem D’Muere was standing sort of bent to the side in the front yard, rubbing at his eyes and spitting to try to clear the smoke from his lungs. Ray Depente went down off the little porch, peeled away his shoulder sling, and said, “Look at me, boy.” Ray didn’t wait for him to look. Ray spun once and kicked Akeem D’Muere on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground.