“That’s the thing. He wasn’t shot, but he’s got this big goose egg on his head. Won’t wake up – the guy’s even snoring. Anyway, Jackie uses this as probable cause for entering the crack house. She marches right inside, which was suicidal. Crack houses are like fortresses. I even remember a raid where Vice nabbed a rocket launcher. Those guys don’t play around.”
Latham looked at me with such frank admiration I almost blushed.
“They didn’t have a rocket launcher,” I said.
“Let me finish the story. So anyway, because I’m Jackie’s partner, I go in after her. Jackie’s in there, screaming and waving her gun, and scares the absolute shit out of them. They practically trip over themselves trying to surrender. We made eighteen felony arrests, all by ourselves, not a single shot fired. Even made the nightly news.”
“What about the cop?”
“That’s the best part. Turned out the cop was there to score some coke for his personal use, and he tripped on a shoelace and knocked himself out.”
Harry laughed, slapping his thigh and staining it with sauce.
“That’s a great story,” Latham said. He took a pull on his beer. “Jack really doesn’t talk about herself.”
“Do you know about the time she loaned out to Vice to go undercover as a hooker?”
“No. I’d like to hear that one.”
I didn’t mind hearing stories about my past so much as I minded Latham getting chummy with Harry McGlade, whom I couldn’t stand for a handful of reasons. This was a good time to change topics.
“So what’s the problem you’re having with Sergeant Pierce?” I asked Harry.
“Oh. I tagged his wife.”
“Tagged?”
“Slipped her the Harry Special, with extra sauce. She’s a fine woman – too good for him.” Harry licked his fingers and reached for the last wing.
“And you need me because…?”
“Apparently – and Mrs. Pierce failed to mention this before we did the worm – her husband plays golf with the mayor.”
“And?”
“And now the City of Big Shoulders refuses to let me renew my PI license.”
I was about to express my amusement at this fortuitous news, when the
Harry and I, both instantly recognizing the sound, dropped to the floor. I yanked Latham down with me.
“You get a fix?” McGlade had his gun already out. A.44 Magnum, one of the biggest hand cannons on the market. Insert Freudian overcompensation joke here.
“Near the entrance,” I told him, thumbing open my purse and yanking out my S &W.38.
Another gunshot. Half of the crowd still didn’t know what was happening, and stood around looking confused or oblivious. I peered through the sea of legs and spied the perp by the front door. He was white, thin, his face nearly as disheveled as his clothing. He had a semiautomatic in his hand – looked like a 9mm – and was waving it around without direction.
At his feet, the bouncer lay in a widening pool of blood.
“Looks homeless and whacked out on something. Nine mil. One person down that I can see.”
“I’ll flank him. Cover me.”
Harry scooted off to the right, heading for the far wall. I dug out my badge with my left hand.
“Stay down,” I told Latham. Then I stood up and raised my badge over my head.
“Police! Everybody get down!”
The people around me screamed, yelled, ran, panicked, and some actually listened. The rock music playing through the house speakers stopped. I slipped off my heels and drew a bead on the perp, who stared up at the ceiling with his mouth open.
“Drop the weapon!”
No response. I couldn’t tell if he even heard me. I glanced to the right but couldn’t see Harry with all of the people running around.
Three steps closer, right arm at full extension, left arm supporting it from underneath, my gun fully cocked. I aimed for his heart.
“Drop the weapon, sir!”
He might as well have been deaf. I closed the distance between us to less than fifteen feet. An easy shot. I didn’t have extra rounds, and I hoped six would be enough.
“This is your last warning, sir! Drop the weapon!”
He didn’t move. I had no other options.
Breathe in, breathe out,
Three rounds, a tight grouping in the chest.
He staggered back, stared at me, raised his 9mm.
Harry’s cannon went off just as I fired my last three bullets.
I hit high, two in the shoulder and one in the neck.
Harry hit all over the place. His slugs were larger, faster, and ripped through the perp like stones through tissue paper.
The guy went down, hard. I moved in, kicked away his gun. There were cuffs in my purse, but I didn’t think I’d need them; he looked like chicken Parmesan with a slice of Swiss cheese on top.
I turned my attention to the fallen bouncer. Stomach wound. Pulse strong, but irregular. I heard sirens coming closer, looked around for something to stop the bleeding.
“Well, shit on my head and call me a toilet.”
Harry tapped me on the shoulder. He’d been removing the spent brass from his cylinder, and when I looked up at him he pointed forward with his chin.
The perp, our perp, was running out the front door.
I glanced at Harry. He shrugged.
We went after the guy.
I bolted out the door, barefoot, the heat pressing down on me. The blood trail went left, and I saw the shooter sprinting through traffic – a helluva lot faster than should have been possible.
Harry whistled. “Damn. You miss every shot?”
“I landed all six. How did you miss with a barrel that long?”
“All mine were sweet. That guy had more holes than a golf course.”
We jogged after him.
The pavement was hot underfoot, and little bits of rock and debris dug into my soles. For the first time in my life I was grateful for my ugly calluses.
“Jesus!” McGlade huffed next to me. “I’m not used to exercise in the vertical position.”
“Have another buffalo wing.”
The perp rounded the north entrance to Wrigley Field, bystanders giving him a wide berth. He was bleeding, but not as much as I would have guessed. Maybe the layers of filthy clothes were absorbing it all.
McGlade dropped a few paces behind me, lost to a coughing jag. I lengthened my stride. My dress clung to my legs, but the slit was big enough to give me room. I still had the gun in my right hand, where it was beginning to get heavy. With my left hand I tried to adjust my underwire, which dug painfully into my ribs.
I took a short detour to avoid a broken beer bottle, turned a corner, and almost wet myself.
The perp had changed directions and was charging straight at me.
I skidded to a halt, losing some skin on my pinkie toes, and recovered quickly enough to fall into a front stance; right leg straight behind me, left leg forward, knee slightly bent, left fist clenched and parallel with the leg. A blocking position.
Tae kwon do originated in Korea. Students progress through ten belts before reaching black. Testing for each belt was broken down into four parts: forms, which were memorized steps similar to karate’s
My forte was sparring.
The perp swung with his right arm, bringing it down overhead in a chopping motion.
I blocked easily, spun, and back-kicked him in the spine, adding to his momentum.
He ate pavement, hard, then rolled onto his side. The sidewalk under him was soaked with blood. I stared into his eyes – nothing but pupil, focused on someplace other than the here and now. His chest wounds oozed like a squeezed sponge.
I’d seen corpses in better shape.
But this guy didn’t die. He sat up, trying to get to his feet.
I switched the grip on my gun and tapped him, butt-first, on the forehead.
He fell back, then sat up again, head wound gushing.
For years I’d heard the stories about PCP crazies breaking out of handcuffs, jumping off ten-story buildings and surviving, getting shot a dozen times and still putting up a fight. But I’d never believed them.
Until now.
Wheezing, coming from behind me. Harry trotted up, gasping for air like an asthmatic who’d just snorted pollen.
The perp looked at Harry, screamed something unintelligible, and launched himself at the PI.
Harry screamed as well, an octave higher, and whipped his Magnum across the perp’s face.
Again the guy went down.
Again the guy sat up.
McGlade took a step back. “This isn’t right, Jackie. Maybe we should just let him go.”
“If he gets away, he’ll bleed to death.”
“And that would be bad?”
The man made it to his knees, and then his feet. I didn’t want to hit him with the gun again, so I went with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head.
He went down. Came up.
Harry scratched his chin. “It’s like one of those old toys. The little egg-shaped people that wobble but don’t fall down.”
“Weebles. But I don’t remember them being this bloody.”
