Jonathon King - A Killing Night

I told Earl to stay inside for a while and the giant man either chuckled or belched and said: "Wasn't plannin' nothin' but."

I went out on the sidewalk and took up a spot in the shadows just east of the restaurant where I could watch Hector's stash house. The night was warm with the smell of alley trash mixed with exhaust fumes. If I smoked I would have lit a cigarette. I hated stakeouts. After twenty minutes my portable radio hummed with static and I stepped further back and answered.

"Just passed your squad, Freeman. You on foot again?" It was my narcotics friends.

"Affirmative."

"Switching to tack four," he said. I switched the channel on the radio to a less congested frequency where half the district wouldn't be listening in.

"We're calling in some patrol backup for a perimeter and we'll be going in through the back. You'll have some help when we go, Freeman. But you've got the front for now."

"I'm ten-thirteen."

A young couple came out of Mamma's and got in their car. When they pulled out, I saw their headlights slide over a dark figure across the street who was moving down the east side alley, the word police stenciled onto his back in bold yellow letters. I walked back down to Mamma's entrance where Earl was standing, watching his customers drive away.

"Do me a favor, Earl," I said. "Keep everybody inside for the next few minutes."

He nodded his head, but his eyes stayed level, focused on something over my shoulder. I turned and saw Hector coming out of the west side alley, just starting to pull his sweatshirt hood up over his head, and he looked into my face.

"We're going in," the entry team's leader spat out from the radio at my side and the crackle was like a starter's pistol. Hector bolted.

"I got a runner," I barked into the radio and started sprinting.

Most foot pursuits are useless. Belts and radios and handguns and batons flailing on your hips. And most cops won't muster the kind of adrenaline it takes to outrun the fuel of fear that is jacking up the guy they're chasing. But Hector had become a special case for me, and he wasn't much of a track star. Within a block I was gaining on him. He made a stupid move no non-athlete should attempt by trying to hurdle and slide over the hood of a parked car to make the corner. He went down and I heard that ugly snap of leg bone when he hit the street. He'd gained one knee when I got a fistful of hood and hair and yanked him back down to the ground.

The kid reacted to the pain by squirming, but I put my own knee into the middle of his back and pushed his face into the asphalt with one hand while using the other on my radio.

"This is Freeman. My runner is in custody," I said, then had to catch my breath and look around. "Uh, corner of South and Thirteenth."

Hector had smartened up and quit struggling when the headlights of a car caught us from the north and stopped. I squinted into the brightness and heard the car door slam.

"Goddamn, Freeman. What kinda squirrelly animal you got there?"

When the uniform and the face stepped up I recognized Patrolman O'Shea. He was too handsome to be a real cop, and every time I saw him he had a bemused look on his Irish face.

"You on the perimeter, O'Shea?"

"Yeah. Heard on the tack that you had something going, Freeman."

I clipped my radio and took my handcuffs off my belt. O'Shea leaned in.

"Hey, it's good ole Hector down there. How you doin', boy?" he said, and then I felt and heard the patrolman kick the kid hard underneath me.

"Nasty-looking angle on that leg bone, Hector," O'Shea said. "Guess you won't be running too much in the yard over at Greaterford."

Hector sucked at his teeth in pain and whispered something about someone's madre. O'Shea cocked his boot.

"Hey, I got him, O'Shea," I said. "I got him under control here."

The words had barely cleared my mouth when the crack of gunfire sounded in the distance down South Street. O'Shea and I both looked up and stared out into the pools of shadow and light. Within seconds I caught a glimpse of spinning blue lights and heard the swell of sirens. I'd paid little attention to the movement of the kid below me and was just fumbling with the radio when I sensed O'Shea step forward and bark: "You little bastard!"

Hector cried out and I looked back to see a polished boot crushing the kid's hand into a small.38 caliber pistol he'd pulled from somewhere. I dug my knee harder into his back and heard the bones in his hand crack like a crab shell as O'Shea put all of his weight into it. He then reached down and I could smell the Dentyne on his breath as he wrestled the cheap gun from under the kid's hand and chucked it into the nearby gutter. He stood up with that smile and looked down at me.

"Now you're in control, Freeman," he said. "Now you're in control."

When I woke up in the chaise, a pair of small blue eyes was staring into my face, topped by a mop of blond hair. I blinked and focused and when I raised my hand to wipe away whatever look I was holding on my face, the boy from the shower turned and ran.

I took a couple of minutes to orient myself, caught some bits of the dream still behind my eyes and then checked my watch. I'd been asleep two hours. I needed to get on to Billy's. I shaved and showered, dressed in khakis and a white un-ironed oxford shirt and slipped on my Docksides. The cab of my pickup truck still held the heat of the day so I kicked the A.C. up and pulled out, heading north on A1A. Though the trip to Billy's apartment building would be faster on I-95, I tried to avoid that craziness of high-speed tailgaters and opted for an occasional glimpse of ocean between the mansions and condos, even at the expense of hitting dozens of traffic lights.

When I got to the twelve-story Atlantic Towers, I pulled directly into the front visitor's lot. Twenty-four spaces, all of them filled. As I inched down the row, the burp in the pattern of parked Acuras, Lexuses and high-end SUVs was a sedan that had backed into a spot. The driver was sitting behind the wheel. I stopped my truck and looked at the man, wondering if he was getting ready to leave. He pulled down his sunshade and waved me on. I could tell only that he was white, from the hands and thin arms. Maybe middle-aged, with a stubble-darkened chin. There was a long black telephoto lens attached to a camera body wedged on the dash and he turned his face away, searching the passenger seat for something, maybe a snack. I hated surveillance, too, I thought. By habit I filed a quick description of the car into my cop's head and moved on. I found a spot around the corner where the maintenance people parked and where my F-150 would not seem out of place.

The lobby of the Atlantic Towers was all polished marble and brass and the concierge/manager with the fake English accent was like part of the furnishing. He took a slight, barely perceptible bow when I approached his desk.

"Mr. Freeman."

I nodded.

"I shall call Mr. Manchester and announce you, sir." The phone was already in his hand. I again nodded and turned to the brushed stainless door of the elevator without comment. I didn't like the guy. Too damn frumpy. Plus, I knew he'd been born in Brooklyn and the accent was a put-on.

The inside of the elevator was paneled dark wood and the light on the penthouse button was already on. Seconds later the doors opened onto a private alcove with a handsome set of double oak doors at one end. I raised my knuckles to knock but a turn of the European-style brass handle beat me.

"Max, how wonderful to see you. Come in, come in," said Diane McIntyre, swinging open the door and then reaching up on her toes to kiss my cheek.

Billy's attorney friend, and now fiancee, was radiant. Her hair was a glossy and subtle auburn. She was dressed in a loose silk blouse oddly paired with sky blue sweatpants and was padding around in bare feet with a glass of wine in her hand. There was a smile on her pale but slightly flushed face. She was a happy woman.