It looked as if Shareef Thomas had definitely fallen down a few notches. If he was here, he was hanging with the low end of the low. Was Shareef dying? Or just hiding? Did he know Soneji might be looking for him?
“What do you want, chief?” the Latino man asked in a low grumble. His eyes were thin slits.
“Little peace and quiet,” I said. I kept it respectful. As if this were church, which it was for some people.
I handed him two crumpled bills and he turned away with the money. “In there,” he said.
I looked past him into the main room, and I felt as if a hand were clutching my heart and squeezing it tight.
About ten or twelve men and a couple of women were sitting or sprawled on the floor and on a few soiled, incredibly thin mattresses. The pipeheads were mostly staring into space, doing nothing, and doing it well. It was as if they were slowly fading or evaporating into the smoke and dust.
No one noticed me, which was okay, which was good. Nobody much cared who came or left this hell-hole. I still hadn’t spotted Shareef. Or Soneji.
It was as dark as a moonless night in the main room of the crackhouse. No lights except for an occasional match being struck. The sound of the match-head strike, then a long, extended hiss.
I was looking for Thomas, but I was also carefully playing my part. Just another strung-out junkie pipehead. Looking for a spot to smoke, to nod out in peace, not here to bother anyone.
I spotted Shareef Thomas on one of the mattresses, near the rear of the dark, dingy room. I recognized him from pictures I’d studied at Lorton. I forced my eyes away from him.
My heart started to pump like crazy. Could Soneji be here, too? Sometimes he seemed like a phantom or ghost to me. I wondered if there was a door back out. I had to find a place to sit down before Thomas became suspicious.
I made it to a wall and started to slide down to the floor. I watched Shareef Thomas out of the corner of my eye. Then all kinds of unexpected madness and chaos broke out inside the crackhouse.
The front door was thrown open and Groza and two uniforms burst in. So much for trust. “Muhfucker,” a man near me woke up and in the smoky shadows.
“Police! Don’t move!” Carmine Groza yelled. “Nobody move. Everybody stay cool!” He sounded like a street cop anyway.
My eyes stayed glued to Shareef Thomas. He was already getting up off the mattress, where he’d been content as a cat just a few seconds ago. Maybe he wasn’t stoned at all. Maybe he was hiding.
I grabbed for the Glock under my rolled-up shirt, tucked at the small of my back. I brought it around in front of me. I hoped against hope I wouldn’t have to use it in these close quarters.
Thomas raised a shotgun that must have been hidden alongside his mattress. The other pipeheads seemed unable to move and get out of the way. Every red-rimmed eye in the room was opened wide with fear.
Thomas’s Street Sweeper exploded! Groza and the uniformed cops hit the floor, all three of them. I couldn’t tell if anyone had been hit up front.
The Latino at the door yelled, “Cut this shit out! Cut the shit!” He was down low on the floor himself, screaming without raising his head into the line of fire.
“Thomas!” I yelled at the top of my voice.
Shareef Thomas was moving with surprising speed and alertness. Quick, sure reflexes, even under the influence. He turned the shotgun on me. His dark eyes glared.
There is nothing to compare with the sight of a shotgun pointed right at you. I had no choice now. I squeezed the trigger of the Glock.
Shareef Thomas took a thunderbolt in his right shoulder. He spun hard left, but he didn’t go down. He pivoted smoothly. He’d been here before. So had I.
I fired a second time, hit him in the throat or lower jaw. Thomas flew back and crashed into the paper-thin walls. The whole building shook. His eyeballs flipped back and his mouth sagged open wide. He was gone before he hit the crackhouse floor.
I had killed our only connection to Gary Soneji.
Chapter 48
I HEARD CARMINE Groza shouting into his radio. The words chilled me. “Officer down at 412 Macon. Officer down!”
I had never been on the scene when another officer was killed. As I got to the front of the crackhouse, though, I was certain one of the uniforms was going to die. Why had Groza come in here like that? Why had he brought in patrolmen with him? Well, it didn’t matter much now.
The uniformed man lay on his back on the littered floor near the front door. His eyes were already glazed and I thought he was in shock. Blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth.
The shotgun had done its horrifying work, just as it would have done me. Blood was splashed on the walls and across the scarred wooden floor. A scorched pattern of bullet holes was tattooed in the wall above the patrolman’s body. There was nothing any of us could do for him.
I stood near Groza, still holding my Glock. I was clenching and unclenching my teeth. I was trying not to be angry with Groza for overreacting and causing this to happen. I had to get myself under control before I spoke.
A uniformed cop to my left was muttering, “Christ, Christ,” over and over again. I could see how traumatized he was. The uniformed man kept wiping his hand across his forehead and over his eyes, as if to wipe out the bloody scene.
EMS arrived in a matter of minutes. We watched while two medics tried desperately to save the patrolman’s life. He was young and looked to be only in his mid-twenties. His reddish hair was in a short brush cut. The front of his blue shirt was soaked with blood.
In the rear of the crackhouse another medic was trying to save Shareef Thomas, but I already knew that Thomas was gone.
I finally spoke to Groza, low and serious. “We know that Thomas is dead, but there’s no reason Soneji has to know. This could be how we get to him. If Soneji thought Thomas was alive at a New York hospital.”
Groza nodded. “Let me talk to somebody downtown. Maybe we could take Thomas to a hospital. Maybe we could get the word to the press. It’s worth a shot.”
Detective Groza didn’t sound very good and he didn’t look too good. I was sure I didn’t either. I could still see the ominous billboard in the distance: COP SHOT $10,000 REWARD.
Chapter 49
NO ONE in the police manhunt would ever guess the beginning, the middle, but especially the end. None of them could imagine where this was heading, where it had been going from the first moment inside Union Station.
Gary Soneji had all the information, all the power. He was getting famous again. He was somebody. He was on the news at ten-minute intervals.
It didn’t much matter that they were showing pictures of him. Nobody knew what he looked like today, or yesterday, or tomorrow. They couldn’t go around and arrest everyone in New York, could they?
He left the late Jean Summerhill’s apartment around noon. The pretty lady had definitely lost her head over him. Just like Missy in Wilmington. He used her key and locked up tight. He walked west on Seventy-third Street until he got to Fifth, then he turned south. The train was back on the track again.
He bought a cup of black coffee in a cardboard container with Greek gods all over the sides. The coffee was absolute New York City swill, but he slowly slipped it anyway. He wanted to go on another rampage right here on Fifth Avenue. He really wanted to go for it. He imagined a massacre, and he could already see the live news stories on CBS, ABC, CNN, FOX.
