Dan Simmons - Hardcase

The shooter wasn't coming.

Kurtz opened his mouth wide, trying to calm his panting, listening hard.

Limerock slid and scraped behind him and to the right. Either the shooter or an accomplice was flanking him, climbing over the limerock heap or climbing around it.

Kurtz shifted the.38 to his left hand and rolled right, sweeping black pebbles over him like a man attending to his own burial. He dug his feet into the heap, letting the small, smooth stones slide over him. He butted his head into a depression in the heap and let the black rock cover everything but his eyes. As the stones settled, Kurtz shifted the pistol to his shooting hand, but buried the hand in rock.

He knew that he was only partially covered, quite visible in all but the dimmest light. But the light here was very dim indeed. Kurtz aimed the.38 in the direction of the earlier sound and waited.

Another sliding sound. There was just enough light for Kurtz's eyes to see the silhouette of his attacker's gun arm as it came around the edge of the mound of limerock twenty feet or so away. Kurtz waited.

A man's head and shoulder appeared and then jerked back out of sight. Kurtz waited.

The light was stronger behind Kurtz. That meant that the shooter could see silhouettes on the floor or rock pile better than Kurtz could. Kurtz could only wait and hope that he was not presenting a silhouette to view.

The man moved with real speed, coming around the side of the pile and sliding to floor level, weapon raised and braced in the approved style. There was a bulk to the upper body which suggested body armor.

Knowing that any movement would draw fire, but also knowing that he had to change his aim or miss, and thus die in a very few seconds, Kurtz shifted the snub-nosed.38 a bit to the left. Stones slid.

The man wheeled at the first sound and fired three times. One of the slugs hit a foot or so above Kurtz's right hand and threw stone chips into his face. The second bullet slammed into rock between Kurtz's buried right arm and his body. The third nicked Kurtz's left ear.

Kurtz fired twice, aiming for the man's groin and left leg.

The shooter went down.

Kurtz was up and running toward him, shaking off stones, sliding and almost falling in the resulting rock slide, reaching the shooter just as the groaning man started to raise his weapon again.

Kurtz kicked the 9mm Glock out of Detective Hathaway's right hand, and it went skittering away on cold stone. The cop was fumbling for something with his left hand, and Kurtz almost shot him in the head before he realized that Hathaway was holding up a leather wallet section with his badge catching the dim light A shield, the cops called it.

Hathaway moaned again and clutched at his left leg with his empty hand. Even in the darkness, Kurtz could see blood pumping from the wound. Must have nicked the femoral artery . If he'd hit it full on, Hathaway would be dead by now.

"A tourniquet… my belt… make a tourniquet," Hathaway was moaning.

Kurtz kept the.38 steady, set his foot on Hathaway's chest—knocking the wind out of him—and held the muzzle a foot from the cop's face. "Shut up!" Kurtz hissed. He was looking over his shoulder, listening.

No footsteps. No noise at all except for the two men's labored breathing.

"Tourniquet…" moaned Detective Hathaway, his gold shield still raised like a talisman. He was wearing heavy Kevlar body armor with porcelain plates, military style. It would have stopped an M-16 round, much less Kurtz's.38 slug. But Kurtz's bullet had gone into the cop's leg about four inches below the hem of the vest. "You can't… kill… a cop, Kurtz," gasped the homicide detective. "Even you aren't… that fucking… stupid. Tie off… my leg."

"All right," said Kurtz, putting more weight on his right foot on Hathaway's chest, but not enough to shut off all breathing. "Just tell me if you're alone."

"Tourniquet…" gasped the cop and then gasped again as Kurtz dug his heel in. "Yeah, fuck… fuck…yeah… alone. Let me tie this off. I'm fucking bleeding to death, you miserable fuck."

Kurtz nodded agreement. "I'll help you tie it off. As soon as you tell me why you're doing this. Who are you working for, and how did you know I'd be here?"

Hathaway shook his head. "The precinct knows… I'm here. This place will be crawling… with cops… five minutes. Give me your belt." He held his detective shield higher, his hand shaking.

Kurtz realized that he wasn't going to get an explanation from the wounded man. He took his foot off Hathaway's chest and took a step to the side, aiming the.38 at the detective's forehead.

Hathaway's mouth dropped open—he was breathing raggedly and loudly—and he swung the shield up in front of his face again, holding it in both hands the way someone would hold a crucifix to drive off a vampire. He was gasping, but his voice was very loud in the empty mill, as was the sound of Kurtz clicking the hammer back on the.38.

"Kurtz… you fucking don't kill a cop !"

"I've already had this discussion," said Kurtz.

In the end, the detective's gold shield was no shield at all.

"Where the fuck is that detective motherfucker?" said Doo-Rag, sitting on the edge of Malcolm's huge desk. "It almost one a.m. Motherfucker should've called by now."

"Get the fuck off my desk," said Malcolm.

Doo-Rag got off, slowly, sullenly, and moved to the leather couch against the wall. He played with the Mac-10 in his hands, clicking the safety on and off repeatedly.

"You click that one more time, motherfucker, and I will have to ask Cutter to remonstrate with you, Doo," said Malcolm.

Doo-Rag glared but set the Mac-10 on the couch beside him. "So where is the honky cop motherfucker?"

Malcolm shrugged and put his Bally loafers up on the desk. "Maybe Kurtz killed his ass."

"Hathaway that much of a fuckup?" said Doo-Rag.

Malcolm shrugged again.

"How come the cop didn't tell us where this Kurtz motherfucker was going?"

Malcolm smiled. "He probably knew that I'd send you and Cutter and a dozen of the boys to make sure the job was done right and then Hathaway would be out the D-mosque ten Gs."

"But he told us where Kurtz work," said Doo Rag. "That basement under the porn shop. We should be there."

"Nobody there, middle of the night," said Malcolm. "Hold your water, Doo. The cop don't kill Kurtz tonight for some reason, you and your crew can go visit the porn-shop basement tomorrow."

Cutter quit looking out the window and sat on the corner of Malcolm's desk. Malcolm said nothing. Doo-Rag glared at Cutter, then at Malcolm, then at Cutter again. Both men ignored him.

"You really gonna let the honky cop collect the D-mosque's ten grand?" Doo-Rag said after a minute.

Malcolm shrugged. "That's why Hathaway ran the tap on some gun dealer we don't know and didn't tell his cop pals. That's why he went to bust a cap on Kurtz by himself tonight. Nothing I can do if he wants all the money."

Doo-Rag smirked. "You could pop a cap up Hathaway's ass."

Malcolm looked at Cutter and then frowned. "You don't kill a cop, Doo. Only a crazy man would do that."

The three of them were in Malcolm's rear second-floor office. Outside the closed door, in the upstairs pool hall, eight more Bloods were shooting pool or sleeping on couches. Downstairs, there were about twenty more, half of them awake. Everyone was armed.

Malcolm dropped his feet off the desk and walked over to the window. Doo-Rag left his Mac-10 on the couch and came over to stand near him. They were a study in contrasts: Malcolm elegantly dressed and preternaturally still, long fingers quiet, and Doo-Rag quivering and jiving and snapping his twitchy fingers silently. There was not much to see out back: Doo-Rag's red Camaro, Malcolm's Mercedes, a few other cars belonging to the senior Bloods, and a Dumpster. Malcolm had installed a high-output crime light on a pole since his SLK was out there most of the time, but that was a wasted expense. No one was going to steal Malcolm Kibunte's car from the Seneca Social Club.