J. Konrath - Fuzzy Navel

The Novocain numbness makes it difficult to put his pants back on because he can’t feel if his leg is in the hole, and he can’t really see it either, thanks to a belly forged by de cades of poor dietary choices. But he manages, and then he straps on his empty holster – IA took his gun to rule out friendly fire from the crime scene – and puts his jacket on.

Then Sergeant Herb Benedict heads to the suburbs to find his partner.

JAMES MICHAEL MUNCHEL takes another sip of Gatorade from his canteen, wipes the sweat off his eye, and peers through the scope again. So far, he’s been the lucky one. He has the kitchen covered, and that’s where most of the action has taken place.

From what he’s figured out, the tall bitch with the messed-up face is causing all sorts of problems for the female cop, the guy next to the refrigerator is stuck there because he has some kind of James Bond mechanical hand that won’t let go, and there’s a cat in the house in serious need of a distemper shot.

Munchel could have ended it for all of them, at any time. But he didn’t. He made sure his shots came close without hitting any of the targets. Scaring them, but not wounding them. He’s having too much fun for this to end.

That tight-ass Swanson is looking to kill everyone, then high tail it out of here, quick and dirty. But this should be savored. There’s a real-life drama going on inside the cop’s house. It’s far more interesting than Munchel’s everyday life, punching a clock at the English muffin factory. Munchel is the gluer there. His job, for eight mind-numbing hours from ten p.m. until six a.m., five days a week, is to add glue chips to the melter, which is then picked up by the roller, which paints glue on the flat cardboard blanks prior to them being folded into muffin packages. His work is literally about as much fun as watching glue dry.

He’s going to miss his shift to night. Maybe he’ll even be fired. But he doesn’t care. Right now he feels like he’s watching a movie. No, like he’s starring in a movie. Starring in it and directing it. He decides who dies first, who dies last. He has the power.

“Did you hit anyone yet?” Swanson, through the radio.

“Negative,” Pessolano answers.

Munchel hits the talk button. “I came close. They’re hiding. Don’t have a shot.”

He squints through the scope. The chick cop is right in his crosshairs. All he needs to do is pull the trigger, and it’s game over.

But where’s the challenge in that?

That gives Munchel an idea. A way to make this even more interesting, and to get the same adrenaline rush he got in Ravenswood. But he needs to get back to Pessolano’s pickup truck, which is parked in the woods half a mile away.

“I gotta take a leak,” he tells the guys. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Then Munchel stands up, stretches, and heads off to get another rifle.

AFTER A SEMI-FRANTIC SEARCH I find the handcuff key on the kitchen counter. I unlock the remaining bracelet, drag Alex across the floor by her hair, and secure her wrists around the U pipe under the sink.

“See if she’s got my battery pack in her pocket,” Harry says.

I don’t like touching Alex – even restrained and unconscious she frightens me. But when I reach for her pocket she doesn’t leap up, break free, and then plunge a knife into my chest. She just lies there, unmoving. I locate the bulge in the front of her pants and tug out Harry’s battery. Well, a few pieces of it.

“Shit hell damn,” Harry says. “Kick her in the head, from me.”

“Can’t you pry open your hand?

“Yeah, why didn’t I think of that? Then I could have actually tried to hide, rather than just squat here like an idiot.”

I frown. “Maybe we could pull off the handle.”

“I already tried. Who the hell made this fridge? Brinks?”

Harry reaches inside, helps himself to one of my Goose Island India Pale Ales.

“Latham!” I call to the living room. “We got Alex subdued. You holding up okay?”

My honey answers affirmatively, but his voice is weak.

“How about you, Mom?”

“I’m good. Did you punch her lights out?”

“Harry did.”

“Nice job, Harry!”

“Thanks! But your daughter hit me in the dumplings with a hot pie.”

“Jacqueline!” Mom scolds. “Why did you do that?”

“It was an accident, Mom.”

“Did you apologize?”

I mutter, “Sorry, Harry.”

“She didn’t sound sincere!” Harry tells my mom.

I roll my eyes, then fish out a bag of peas from the freezer. I hold it to my sore chin and consider the situation.

Alex, for the moment, is secure. We have no cell phone ser vice, which means the snipers are jamming the signal. My landline is also out. Since my home phone goes through my cable connection, I assume my cable Internet is gone too.

I ponder the likelihood of someone hearing the gunshots and calling 911, and realize the chances aren’t good. The shooters are using suppressors, and the trees do a decent job of stopping the echoes.

Latham is still bound, still bleeding. I need to get to him, but between us is a vast open space, all of it viewable by the snipers. I counted at least two shooters, but I’m guessing that all three are here. I have no clue why. Are they pissed off I didn’t die in Ravenswood?

Harry picks an apple slice off of his shirt and pops it into his mouth. “I never got to thank you for inviting me over. We should do this more often.”

“Alex forced me, Harry. I tried to warn you.”

“No biggie. Who needs balls anyway? They make your pants fit funny.”

“It’s bad?” I ask.

Harry pulls out his waistband and peeks inside.

“I don’t think they’re supposed to swell up this big.”

“You need to see a doctor.”

“I need to see Mr. Ripley.”

“Mr. Ripley?”

“The Believe It or Not guy. I should make a plaster mold for his museum.”

I toss him the frozen peas. He stuffs them down his pants.

“COLD!” Harry yells. “SO COLD!”

I stare at him, hopping from foot to foot, and then I look at the freezer door of the stainless steel refrigerator. It’s pockmarked with bullet holes, each in the center of a huge dent. Strange. Full-metal jacketed slugs should have punched right through without denting it. I crawl up to Harry to get a closer look.

“So what shitstorm did I wander into?” McGlade asks. He drains the beer, tosses the bottle at Alex’s head, misses, then reaches for another.

“Three snipers. They kill sex offenders. Call themselves TUHC.”

Harry belches and says, “The Urban Hunting Club.”

I appraise him. “You’ve heard of them?”

“No. But there’s a producer of DVD adult entertainment called TUBC. The Urban Booty Club . Lots of college girls taking off their tops and eating Popsicles, stuff like that. The first DVD is only nine ninety-nine, but that’s how they sucker you in, because they send you two new DVDs every month for twenty-nine ninety-nine each. And they’re only forty-five minutes long, which is a real rip-off.” Harry scratches his nose. “So I’ve heard.”

The Urban Hunting Club sounds right. That’s something a group of disgruntled blue-collar Grabowskis would call themselves.

“They killed three rapists to night, then gunned down ten cops,” I say. “Looks like they followed me home.”

“You think?”

I open the fridge, can’t find where the bullets have gone through on the inside. The door seems to have stopped them. I shake it, and hear some slugs rattling inside. I use a spoon to pry back the plastic molding, and a gray bullet drops out. It resembles a mushroom. The snipers have switched from jacketed rounds to soft points. A soft point has more stopping power, expanding on impact, but not the penetrating power of a full-metal jacket slug, which didn’t deform as much.