And before Sanders could plead or even move, the colonel squeezed the trigger, and ten .45 hardball rounds slammed into the middle of Sanders’s chest and literally blew him out of the Jeep.
Gun smoke eddied up, unfurling. The colonel coughed. He was surprised at the weapon’s sluggish cyclic rate and imprecise action. The air around him was hot and filled with grit.
He waved the smoke away vigorously, then slotted the vehicle into gear and drove off.
— | — | —
PART ONE
ghoul (gool) noun [Ar.
-roughly from the verb transitive
-feminine form
-plural form unclear
-VARIATIONS: (chiefly European)
-SOURCE: pre-Islamic
—from “Rudiments of Terms,”
—from “The Babysitter” by PHILIP STRAKER
— | — | —
CHAPTER ONE
“Yeah, Chief. This is Kurt.”
“Hot damn. I’d never have fucking guessed.”
“The dispatcher just radioed me. Told me to give you a landline.”
“Uh huh. That was a half hour ago.”
“It’s not my fault they wait a half hour to relay their calls.”
Bard’s words were suddenly garbled, smacking. He was often known to engage in conversation with his mouth full. In fact, he was often known to have his mouth full on any occasion. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. That’s the price we pay for being on the county commo band. What good’s a police department without its own communications system, will you tell me that? Maybe one day this tight-fisted pockmark of a town’ll cough up the funds for our own dispatcher and frequency. Fucking county acts like our business isn’t important.”
“Okay. So what’s so important?”
“On your way back to the station, I need to you to pick me up a box of doughnuts. The chocolate-covered kind, the big ones.”
“Now that’s what I call important police business, yes, sir.”
“Well, it is. I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten all day.”
“But you’re eating now. I can hear you.”
“Just shut up and get the doughnuts. And grab this month’s
“I’m not going to buy a skin magazine in uniform.”
“You will unless you’d like to wear the uniform of some other department. Baltimore City’s hiring, if you don’t mind the lowest starting pay in the state and the highest murder statistics. Or, hell, I’m sure a guy with your experience could walk right into a nice cushy foot beat in Southeast D.C.”
“I hear you, Chief.”
“Good. If they don’t have
Kurt wished he had the—testicular fortitude?—to tell Bard exactly where he could put the doughnuts and magazine. Three months in the police academy for this?
“Yeah, but before you do any of that, I’ll let you go play police officer for a change. I’ve got a resident complaint for you, possible signal 7P. That’s trespassers on private property, in case you’ve forgotten your code sheet.”
“I know what a 7P is, Chief. I’m the only one around here who bothers to answer them. So what’s the 20 for these trespassers?”
“Belleau Wood. The prop-owner’s wife made the complaint. Glen doesn’t come in for a couple of hours, so she phoned us.”
“That’s the rich guy’s land, right? Dr. Willard? I didn’t know he was married.”
“Well now you do. She said somebody popped the chain on one of their entrance gates. Probably a bunch of kids back there cornholing or something.”
“You want me to bust them?”
“I don’t give a fuck, use your police officer’s discretion. You can kick their dicks off for all I care. Just get a move on.”
“Okay, Chief. I’m on my way.”
“And don’t forget. The chocolate-covered kind, the big ones.”
PFC Kurt Morris hung up the Liquor Mart pay phone and went back to the town car, a dulling, white Dodge Diplomat with a banged-in rear bumper and one of the high lights missing from the visibar. The car looked like it
