“Refresh my memory.”
“Vic got bushwhacked by a bunch of Russian Mafia. There was a crazy shootout. He got tagged a couple times, but we got out of it okay. He was protecting a witness, this young Russian woman. He was a hero.”
“Give it a rest, Erin,” Vic said. “We got no white knights in this car. Hero, my ass.”
“If she’s not telling it right, you can give me the skinny,” Piekarski said. “Maybe later, once we get off this babysitting detail.”
“Babysitting?” Erin echoed. “I don’t know what your teenage years were like, but when I was babysitting, we didn’t usually get shot at.”
Piekarski laughed. “You don’t know the neighborhood I grew up in.”
“Where’d Webb leave Maginty?” Erin asked.
“Just down the way,” Vic said. “At a bar, of course.”
“You saying something about the Irish and our leisure habits?”
“Every culture’s got alcohol,” he said, grinning. “C’mon, I’m Russian, for God’s sake. The first thing a civilization learns how to do is get dead drunk.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” Erin said.
The car’s police radio crackled.
“Got a 10-13! This is Milton, shield three two six four! I’m at 17 John Street!”
“That’s right around the corner,” Vic said, startled. “That’s right by the bar where Maginty was… shit.”
Piekarski grabbed the radio handset. “This is Piekarski, responding. We’re a block out, already en route.”
Vic put on the sirens and sped up, using the horn to warn the New York traffic out of the way. A taxi tried to move to the side, but another taxi, oblivious, swung out from the curb directly into the first car’s path. There was a crunch of metal. Vic, cursing, twisted the wheel. The Taurus squeaked by with a coat of paint to spare. He laid rubber at the corner, fishtailing and narrowly missing a panel truck. Then they were clear and rolling down John Street.
“We’ve got three people down, including my partner,” Officer Milton was saying on the radio. His voice was oddly calm and detached. “And I’ve been hit. I need two buses, minimum, plus backup. One suspect, armed and dangerous. He’s got a rifle, semi-automatic.”
“Here we are,” Vic said. “You ready?”
“Damn right,” Erin said. From the sound of it, someone had just shot a couple of cops. She press-checked her Glock to make sure a round was chambered.
Piekarski nodded tightly, drawing her own sidearm. “Got your back, big guy.”
Vic pulled up outside the bar, behind a squad car. The blue-and-white was parked curbside. Its flashers were dark. The car’s windows were starred with bullet holes. Vic turned his car’s spotlight beam on the passenger compartment. Erin slid out of the back seat, gun in one hand, Rolf’s leash in the other. She could see two figures in the front seat of the squad car. Both of them were moving, she was glad to see.
“NYPD, coming up behind!” she shouted. Piekarski and Vic were right there with her, covering the street.
Someone was screaming inside the bar. It sounded like a young woman, probably hysterical. From the tone, Erin guessed the girl was freaked out but not injured. As the detectives moved closer, three people sprinted out the door of the bar, hands in the air, shouting “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
“Up against the wall!” Vic roared, covering them. “Now!” He didn’t know who might be an enemy.
While he and Piekarski secured the doorway, Erin looked into the squad car. She saw two uniformed officers. One was working feverishly on the other with one hand, his other holding a Glock. The pistol was pointed toward the front of the bar. The man he was tending was writhing in pain.
Erin opened the passenger door. “Milton?” she called. She smelled gunpowder and saw spent brass on the floor.
“Yeah,” the officer replied without turning.
“What’ve we got?” she asked.
“GSW, just over the shoulder,” Milton said. “High-velocity round, went through the vest. He’s conscious, but short of breath. I’m thinking pneumothorax.” He meant a sucking chest wound.
The man under him gave a wheezy, rasping sort of scream.
“It’s okay, Strucker,” Milton said, still sounding unnaturally calm. “We got you. The bus is on the way.”
“Where’s the shooter?” Erin asked.
“Inside.”
“He got hostages?”
“If he’s alive, maybe. I’m pretty sure I hit him.”
“How bad are you hit?”
“Not too bad. Caught one in the arm, high up. Bone’s not broken. I’m fine.”
Erin glanced up. Piekarski was talking to one of the bystanders who’d run out of the bar. Vic was pressed against the wall next to the building, aiming his pistol at the door.
“We’ll handle the shooter,” Erin promised. “You take care of your partner.”
She and Rolf went around the squad car and met up with Piekarski.
“They say the shooter’s still inside,” Piekarski said. “He’s holed up at a booth toward the back. They think he’s hurt.”
“Just one guy?”
“Just the one,” she confirmed. “How you guys want to handle this?”
“We better go in,” Erin said. “If there’s still civilians inside.”
Piekarski nodded. “Okay.”
“Vic,” Erin said.
“Yeah?”
“We’re going in. One shooter, with a rifle, toward the back. I can’t send Rolf, he won’t know who to bite. You good to take point?”
“Copy that. We’ll go on three. I want both you ladies right on my ass when I go in.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Piekarski said with a tense smile.
Vic returned the smile. Then he was all business again. “One… two… three!”
The three officers rushed into the bar, guns ready. They passed shattered windows, broken glassware, and shaken, frightened people. The bar’s patrons were huddled in corners or lying on the floor. No one seemed to be badly hurt. Several civilians pointed toward the back of the room.
Rolf lowered his snout and snuffled. Erin saw what he’d noticed.
“We got a blood trail,” she said.
“I see it,” Vic said. He moved quickly, not quite running, poised for action.
“Got a body here,” Piekarski said, pointing toward the bar. A man lay sprawled there, unmoving, in a large pool of blood and spilled beer.
“That’s not our shooter,” Erin said. The man’s hands were
