spasmodically.
“It will be if I have to pull the trigger again.”
“Mother fucker!” he howled.
I grabbed a towel from the kitchen and tossed it to him.
He wrapped his finger and fell onto the chair, writhing and yelping.
“You going to tell me?” I asked.
He looked up at me-blinking hard, lips quivering-and said, “Don’t know about no Korean and no lady named Tisha.”
“I just took the tip off. But next time, I’ll blow the whole pinkie off. Then I’m going for the ring finger and the index finger and the thumb. So you either tell me what I want to know, or I’ll keep blasting.”
He shook his head.
I wrestled his right hand out of the towel, stuck the muzzle just below his pinkie, and said, “You want to be known as Li’l Seven?”
“No!” he screamed. Reaching for the towel, he wrapped his right hand. “You crazy!”
“That’s right,” I said. “So you better start talking.”
“Just keep that piece away from my hand,” he shouted.
I pointed to the chair. “Get off the floor and sit down.”
He crawled to his feet and teetered onto the chair, his chest heaving with staccato coughs.
“You robbed that Korean market on south Figueroa, right?”
He nodded.
“Yes or no?”
“Yeah, I robbed it.”
“Why’d you shoot the Korean guy behind the counter?”
He looked down at the towel, now soaked in blood, and shook his head.
I jabbed my gun toward the towel.
“I don’t like slopes.”
“That’s it? That’s why you shot him?”
“Didn’t want to leave no wits.”
“But you were wearing a mask. He couldn’t identify you.”
He mumbled a reply, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“What was that?” I shouted.
“I’d been in there before, buying shit and casing the place,” he said through gritted teeth. “Maybe he could’ve recognized my voice or IDed me later on. I didn’t want to take no chance.”
“Why’d you pick that place? It’s a ways from your ‘hood.”
“When I was in the joint, met a homeboy from that ‘hood. Said the slope kept a lot of cash in his register. I remembered that. When I got out, I went after it.”
“You killed Latisha Patton, didn’t you?”
He gripped the towel and shook his head.
I reached over, yanked off the bloody towel, tossed it on the floor, and stuck the barrel in the middle of his palm. “Tell me the fucking truth, or I’ll blow the whole hand off.”
He stared at the bloody towel, turned his head, and spit on the floor. “I had to cap that bitch. She talkin’ to the police. What I suppose to do?”
“Tell me where you found her?”
“I found out where she lived.”
“How?”
“Through the ghetto grapevine. She tole some friend in the ‘hood, who tole someone, who tole someone. So I go out to her place in the Valley.”
“You shoot her there?”
“Lemme think.” Crouching slightly, he balled up the towel and threw it at my face. He ran into the kitchen.
I chased after him, and cracked him on the head with the Beretta. He dropped to the floor, twitching and rubbing the back of his head.
“I’m sick of fucking around with you.” I tapped the barrel of the gun on the knuckles of his right hand. “Did you shoot her there?”
“Tied her up there,” he whispered. “Shot her at Fifty-fourth and Fig, cut her loose, and dumped her.”
CHAPTER 41
The doctor at the Twin Towers jail downtown was able to quickly patch up Li’l Eight’s pinkie, and I was able to book him there. I was relieved that I didn’t have to check him into the jail ward on the thirteenth floor of County General Hospital and contend with the questions and the paperwork associated with an injured suspect in my custody.
I didn’t think the methods I had used for extracting the confession would hold up in court, so I busted him for attempted murder of a police officer. Since this was his third strike, he’d get twenty-five to life-and would probably never get out. Still, I planned to pass on Li’l Eight’s confession to Pardo over at South Bureau. Maybe we could work the case together when things calmed down, nail Li’l Eight for the double murder, and send him to death row.
At dawn, two tired and bored detectives from the Force Investigation Division interviewed me briefly. I told them that Li’l Eight had tried to grab my gun and I fired, which zipped off the top of his pinky. I wasn’t sure they believed me, but they didn’t seem too interested in trying to disprove my story.
Shuffling through the squad room, I poured a cup of coffee, returned to my desk, and fell into my chair. I closed my eyes, but jerked them open when I heard Duffy sit on the edge of my desk. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were so bloodshot I could only see a few streaks of white in a sea of red. I smelled alcohol and Tic Tacs on his breath. His tie was askew and his hair was uncombed.
“I’d like to have a minute with you,” he said.
I followed him into his office.
“I’m grateful to you-more than you can ever know-for getting some justice for Latisha Patton,” he said softly, staring down at his desk. “That case was so damn important-for the department, for this unit, and for me, especially because of the way I… how I… how because of me everything turned to shit,” he sputtered, still looking away from me.
I remained silent.
“I don’t know how many people know of my culpability,” he said, licking his lips.
Duffy was fishing. He wanted to know if I was going to file a complaint or inform the brass about his role in the Patton debacle.
“I’m not going to take you down.”
“Ash, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate-”
“Save it.”
“So where do you want to go from here,” Duffy said. “You just cleared two big cases. You’re in a position to call your own shots.”
I still wanted to track down Wegland’s partner. I just didn’t want to discuss my plans with Duffy. The power equation with him had shifted, and I knew I could use it to my advantage. That was one reason I didn’t rat him out. If the chief brought in a new lieutenant, I might not be able to finish off the investigation the way I wanted. But as long as Duffy remained in charge, I had all the leverage and I could do whatever I wanted.
“I need some time to finish things off.”
“No problem. I’ll keep you clear of new cases for as long as I can. I owe you big-time and I can promise you that-”
I stood up, walked across the office, and slammed the door while Duffy was in mid-sentence.
By the time I finally returned to my loft, I’d been up almost thirty hours straight. I crawled into bed and slept
