obvious. Cuccia had walked the half mile from the gas station without a problem.
Samantha Cole lived at number 6325. Cuccia stopped to read one of the addresses on a building to his right. “Sixty-three thirteen,” he whispered to himself. He walked around the corner to the back of the apartment complex.
As Cuccia passeind tlding on his left now, he counted to himself. He did the same with the next building and the one after that. When he came to a stop again, Cuccia was standing directly behind 6325. He reached for the gun in his waistband when he heard the sound of a motorbike nearby.
Minh Quan parked two spots behind the police cruiser and crossed the front lawn diagonally to the front door. He carried the bag of Chinese food to cover the Beretta tucked in his pants. When he reached the short stairway, the policeman was out of the car and called to him.
“Food delivery,” Minh said, affecting a more pronounced accent.
The policeman eyed him a few seconds until Minh held up the bag of food. Then the cop waved him on and sat back inside the cruiser.
Minh rang the doorbell two times as he grabbed the gun.
Chapter 66
Gold hadn’t prayed for anything in a long time. The veteran detective didn’t have much faith in religion. He believed that mankind made its own bed. He believed in the justice his police work was supposed to provide. He believed in the law.
But the law had failed miserably for a forty-six-year-old maid going about the business of earning a living, and Gold couldn’t get over her death. Ever since he had tried and failed to revive the poor woman, Gold prayed for the chance to kill the man who had killed her.
Now that man was standing about ten feet away.
Iandolli saw the motorcycle make a sharp U-turn in the background. He watched it until he saw Nicholas Cuccia reaching for and holding the gun. Iandolli set the night vision glasses on the grass and stood up in a firing stance.
“Hold it!” he yelled. “Drop your weapon!”
“Fuck me,” Cuccia said. He had half-turned toward the sound of the motorcycle. When he looked back, Iandolli sighted his weapon on Cuccia’s chest.
“Drop it!” Iandolli repeated. “Drop your weapon!”
Iandolli waited for Cuccia to drop his gun before half-stepping across the back lawn toward the gangster. “Don’t fucking breathe,” Iandolli said.
Cuccia raised his hands slowly as the sound of screeching tires filled the night air. “Take it easy, big man,” he said. “You could hurt somebody with that thing.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Iandolli said.
Cuccia saw another cop coming out from behind the bushes. He was short and bald. The cop held his weapon loosely in his right hand. He was close to a foot shorter than the big cop standing to his left.
Cuccia wondered if he could position himself between the two cops somehow and maybe make a move that would cause one of them to shoot the other. He grinned at the image.
“What’s so funny?” the short cop asked.
Cuccia shook his head. He noticed that the big cop was almost in line with a potential crossfire. The sound of the screeching tires grew louder.
“You got me,” he said.
“Yes, we do,” the short cop said.
The big cop stopped short of a crossfire line. Cuccia frowned. He turned toward the motorcycle and saw it was stopped about a block away. The rider was holding a cell phone. The sound of the car making time caught Cuccia’s attention. If both cops blinked, he might be able to get to the gun against his back.
“I surrender,” he told the short cop. “Let’s make a deal.”
“Fuck,” Charlie said when he saw the gun pointed at him.
He had answered the doorbell without looking through the peephole. assumed the police cruiser parked out front would deter trouble.
“Back inside or I shoot you right now, white boy,” the Asian man holding the gun said.
Charlie’s jaw tightened as he stepped back inside the apartment.
The Asian man closed the door behind him and set the bag of food on the floor.
“Hungry?” he asked.
Samantha could see both guns on the end table from where she sat on the couch, but they were too far to reach. When the Asian man hit Charlie across the face with his gun, Samantha jumped on the couch and moved a few inches closer to Beau’s gun.
“Please don’t!” she pleaded.
The Asian man pointed the gun at her. “Shut up, lady, or I kill you, too.”
Samantha gasped. The gun was pointed at her chest. She was helpless on the couch. She looked to Charlie and felt her heart race. He had something in his hand.
Samantha gasped again, but the Asian man wasn’t watching her anymore.
“See?” Cuccia told Gold. “Everybody’s happy now.”
Iandolli was about to frisk the killer when he heard a loud crash.
“The fuck was that?” Gold said.
Both detectives turned toward the apartment.
When the Asian hit him across the face with the gun, Charlie saw the gun was muffled with a silencer. He figured he had one shot at saving Samantha, and that was to break the front window to alert the cop sitting in the cruiser outside.
He could feel blood flowing over his left eye. He heard Samantha plead before the Asian threatened her.
Charlie grabbed a crystal ashtray on a shelf above the television and threw it as hard as he could at the front bay window. The Asian flinched as the glass shattered. Charlie saw the Asian come out of his crouch, aiming the gun. Charlie leaned to one side and could feel the television explode next to him. He started to turn into the Asian when he heard Samantha scream.
Gold and Iandolli ducked when they heard the shot fired inside the house. Cuccia reached behind him and grabbed the Glock. Iandolli had turned toward the apartment. Gold crouched low and turned his weapon on Cuccia.
“Freeze!” he yelled.
Cuccia dropped to one knee and tried to draw on the detective. He was fumbling for the trigger when he saw the flash from Gold’s gun. Cuccia felt a jolt against his right shoulder as his arm flung back from the force of the bullet. He lost his grip on the Glock, and it bounced off the grass a few yards away. Cuccia looked up at Gold with a blank stare before seeing a second flash at the end of the gun barrel. There were two more flashes Cuccia never saw.
Minh saw the ashtray coming and ducked. It shattered the front window of the apartment. Pellecchia was off- balance from the throw. Minh shot at his torso but missed. The television screen exploded instead.
As he took a step closer, Minh flinched from the sound of his cell phone ringing. Then he was flying backward into a wall from a pain in his chest that had caught him off-guard.
His face revealed shock as another piercing pain sent him bouncing off the wall a second time. Minh hit the floor and rolled onto his side. He pointed his gun straight up and unsteadily squeezed off two shots before a third bullet struck him in the chest. He dropped the gun as a fourth shot missed his head by inches.
“Open your eyes,” Charlie said.
Samantha was rigid on the couch. Her arms were extended as she continued to aim Beau’s gun at the Asian man on the floor.
“Sam?” Charlie said. “Itrsquo;s okay now.”
She opened her eyes and immediately started to shake. Charlie stepped toward her as he guided the gun down
