Raffi Yessayan - 2 in the Hat

By the time he got back to his position in the living room, Momma’s house looked like a skeleton of wood, the orange flames garish and scary, dancing wildly in the burst windows. In all the confusion, it took a minute but he finally saw something significant. Standing on the sidewalk a few houses down from Natalie’s house were Darget, Mooney, and Alves.

He watched as the prosecutor and the sergeant got into one car. Alves into his own. Then Sleep watched as the two cars slowly wound through the maze of emergency vehicles and moved away down the street.

Connie’s adrenaline was pumping. This wasn’t like a ride-along, or a foot pursuit of a suspect, or even an execution of a search warrant in a drug house. For the first time he had used his skills to identify a killer. He knew Zardino had to be inside Natalie Fresco’s house, probably with Natalie and her mother. The question was, were any of them still alive?

“You sure this is the house?” Mooney asked.

“I’ve seen Natalie come out the front door. And I ran her license. Her mother is incapacitated, took a bad fall a while back, but she stays up pretty late every night. Probably watching the eleven o’clock news, followed by Leno. I’ve been out here a few times. I’ve never seen the lights out this early.”

“Connie, you stay back,” Mooney said. “I don’t want a situation here. He’s got two potential hostages. If Angel and I can do this quick enough, no one will get hurt.”

“Sarge,” Connie said, “I’m carrying.”

“All the more reason you’re staying here.” Mooney handed Connie his radio. “If anything goes wrong, you hear shots fired, call for backup. But don’t try to be a hero. Stay outside.”

Connie watched as the two detectives got low and made their way onto the small back porch, positioning themselves on either side of the door. Alves had his Glock in his right hand. Mooney was carrying the Blackhawk Battle Ram he’d taken out of the trunk. Once they were in position, Alves moved deliberately, looking in the glass panel of the door, at the same time trying the doorknob. He turned to Mooney, shaking his head. As expected, the door was locked.

From his position, Connie couldn’t see any movement in the house. After a few minutes Mooney made his move. This was when he was the most vulnerable. He tried to keep his body to the side of the door as he leaned back to swing the Ram hard into the doorjamb. Connie saw a shadow move across a casement window near the back door as Mooney prepared to launch the full weight of his body into the head of the Ram. Connie wanted to warn Mooney, but he couldn’t make any noise, not until Mooney broke the silence with his assault on the door.

Connie heard the loud bang and the sound of splintering wood as the first blow split the doorframe.

“Movement inside, Sarge,” Connie shouted.

Mooney followed through with the second blow, and the door flew open. Dropping the Ram, he removed the Glock from its holster and led the way into the house.

Connie was already holding his.38 as he moved on to the porch. Then he heard the shots echoing inside, multiple rounds in rapid succession, almost like one continuous shot.

Zardino’s machine gun.

Sleep didn’t see anything outside, but he thought he heard a noise.

It always started like this. A faint sound that grew louder until he had to put his hands over his ears. He couldn’t think when his Little Things made such a racket. They had to be quiet or the detectives would find them. But they would never listen. That’s how his father had found them in the attic together. “Shut up,” he hissed. Momma did not like that language, but this was an emergency. Where was the sound coming from?

The closet.

He looked out the window. No sign of the detectives. He put his gun down on the lamp table. He wouldn’t need it. At the hall closet he rested his head against the cool, painted wood for just a second. Just to gather his thoughts, as Momma used to say. Then he pulled the door open.

He took his flashlight out of his pocket and switched it on. It wasn’t his Little Things. Just lovely Natalie and her interfering mother. The old biddy was always in the way. She and Natalie’s old man were the ones that had turned Natalie against Sleep. But he needed her now. She would be the one to give Natalie away at the wedding, to give him her hand in marriage. The old woman was pushed back in the corner, Natalie in front of her, protecting her.

Natalie tried to speak, but with the duct tape he couldn’t understand her. She kept using her feet to push herself back into her mother, as if she were trying to drive the old lady back through the back wall of the closet.

Sleep put his index finger to his lips. “Shhh. You must be quiet.”

She kept distorting her face, trying to speak.

“You want to say something?” he asked.

She nodded her head.

“Promise to keep your voice down? No screaming?”

She nodded again.

Sleep leaned forward to remove the tape, pointing his flashlight in her face. Poor thing. He watched as she struggled to catch her breath, her face covered with sweat, her silky black hair matted to her forehead. He carefully peeled a corner of the tape, then quickly pulled it from her face. “What is it you want, dear?”

“Please don’t hurt my mother,” she gasped. “She didn’t do anything. It’s me you want. I’ll do anything. But she’s an old woman. She’s having trouble breathing in here. She needs her medication. It’s in a small bottle on the nightstand next to her bed.”

Sleep heard another noise. He put the tape back over Natalie’s mouth. He put his finger up to his mouth and closed the closet door. He listened carefully.

The back door. Someone was jiggling the doorknob.

He moved into the kitchen, standing away from the window, in the darkness. Still, he saw nothing. Then Sergeant Mooney appeared in the shadows outside the window. He was holding something in his hand. A log. Sleep moved across the kitchen. The gun was in the front room. He was in the hallway when he heard the first blow to the door. He reached the gun just as the door came flying open and Mooney burst into the kitchen and made his way to the front of the house.

Sleep wheeled around and took one shot. He couldn’t get close the way he usually did. He aimed for the center of mass. Mooney went down and dropped his gun. Sleep made a move for Mooney’s gun just as someone pounced on him. Whoever it was tried to pull Sleep’s hands behind his back and cuff him.

It had to be Angel Alves. But he had made the mistake of underestimating Sleep’s power. Alves was not a street fighter. He had never been to prison, never had to use his fighting skills to survive every day.

Sleep sprang to his feet with Alves’s weight on his back. He repeatedly drove the detective into the wall until he felt his grip slacken and slip away. The detective slumped to the floor. Sleep saw a gun in the middle of the floor. He wasn’t sure whose it was, but it didn’t matter.

As he made a move for the gun, he felt a bone-crushing blow to his ribs. He heard a crack as a sharp pain ran up his side, his breath leaving him. He tried a few feeble swings, but the room around them, the prosecutor holding the log, all of it was going gray.

How’s Mooney doing?” Connie asked.

“He got dinged up pretty good,” Alves said. “Zardino’s gun fired four rounds, caught Mooney with three of them. Luckily none hit any bone. Those small rounds do the most damage bouncing around,” Alves said.

“I plan to go to the hospital tomorrow,” Connie said.

“He’s not going anywhere for a couple weeks. Leslie’s been there regularly, keeping him company.”