"Can we try and draw him out of the apartment?" Noah asked.
"Are you kidding? Into this weather?" Johnnie laughed at the idea. "I say we just go in and take him."
Frank sided with Johnnie. "We don't know enough to draw him out. It's a pretty mellow day, and he's probably just hanging inside, chillin'. Unless it's a set-up, I think we've got surprise on our side."
Noah made a wry face as Frank outlined their strategy. The Reston Arms was a concrete, two-story apartment complex, with walk-ups and a balcony around the front. The front door was the only entrance, and depending on how Apartment D was situated, the back-up would cover the windows to the rear and/or side of the building. Technically, Noah and Johnnie would go in first because it was their case, but Frank wanted a better shooter up front. She and Johnnie would flank the door, with Noah and Kennedy behind them. Jill would back up the uniforms behind the apartment.
"Alright. Questions?"
Moving, Johnnie said, "Yeah. You buying lunch afterwards?"
"I thought you were on a liquid diet," Jill shot back.
Filing out in their navy windbreakers, with LAPD stenciled boldly across their backs, they looked like a ball team taking the field. Outside, the rain fell straight and steadfast, a resolute army of droplets streaming unwaveringly to the ground.
"You sure these apartments aren't inside?" Jill asked in the Mercury, squashed between Kennedy and Briggs.
"Don't worry, you ain't gonna melt."
Frank could see the radio units following them in the side mirror. It felt good. They had the advantage of surprise and lots of manpower. Frank's stomach rumbled. She was looking forward to lunch. She cut Noah a glance and could tell he was still upset. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and he hunched over it in bleak determination. He hated busts.
"What's for lunch, Watson?" Frank asked.
He just shrugged, concentrating through the flapping wipers. Frank twisted around with a sharp glare for Kennedy. "Are you ready for this?"
"You know it," Kennedy grinned, making three loud pops with her gum.
She apologized sheepishly when Jill said, "If my kid does that, he'll never chew gum again."
"How come he's called Tunnel?" Kennedy asked.
"Cause he's long and black," Johnnie chimed.
As they approached Reston, Frank went over the plan one more time. The detectives squinted through the rain at the crumbling apartments. Five units stacked over five, spalling gray concrete dotted with bullet holes, rusted stairs at either end providing access to the upper apartments. Some of the windows were covered with tin foil or cardboard. Some were intact but cracked. A few held sagging Christmas decorations.
They parked on the street and scrambled through the maze of crumpled lawn chairs, sprung couches, and garbage. It was hard not to step on shattered Olde English or Cobra bottles. While Jill and two of the cops scrambled around to the back of the building, the other two stayed with Frank's group. They took their positions under the balcony at the apartment's door, hands loosely next to their holstered weapons, radios on. Johnnie pulled the warrant out with a flourish and winked at Frank.
She knocked loudly, and a woman's skinny face peered from behind a sheet in the window. They heard muted voices, then after an inordinate amount of time bolts were slowly drawn back. The woman who'd appeared in the window opened the door a few inches and peeped out from under a chain lock.
"We have a warrant for the arrest of Timothy Johnston," Johnnie growled.
"He ain't here."
"We have reason to believe he is. Unchain the door and step outside."
"I gotta get my coat," she said fearfully, starting to close the door.
"STEP OUTSIDE NOW!" Johnnie bellowed.
The woman glanced over her shoulder, then closed the splintering door and fiddled with the chain. Like a high-speed computer, Frank's brain processed reasons for the delay—getting rid of a stash, trying to get out the back, hiding, positioning for fire. The former seemed the most likely scenario. As the door started to open, the radio blared that a black male, not the suspect, had jumped from a rear window and was in custody, but that there was at least one more black male inside the apartment.
As the woman stepped through, Frank flung the door open. It bounced against the wall. In slow motion she saw Johnnie step inside. Frank followed. They'd walked into a small entry in front of a kitchen. A figure—black/male, Frank registered—had slipped down a hallway off the cluttered living room to their left. Johnnie yelled at him to freeze, but his shadow slid down the hall. He and Frank drew their pistols at the same time. She was vaguely aware that Noah and Kennedy had done the same. Her peripheral brain acknowledged a greasy pile of rock on a coffee table. A cold drop of sweat splashed onto her ribs as she stepped long-legged across the open doorway to the hall. Their suspect had turned, facing them. He was unarmed, but not Tunnel. Where the hell is he, she wondered?
Frank's adrenaline rush made each word coming from the radios crisp and distinct. "We have a second black male in custody. Not the suspect."
Two, she thought, neither Tunnel. Stealing a terrified look to his right, then back at the cops with 9mms drawn on him, the man at the end of the hall slowly raised his hands.
"I didn't do nothin'," tumbled breathlessly out of his mouth. Outside, the skinny woman started crying, wailing to be released.
"Okay," Johnnie soothed, walking toward him with gun lowered. "Be cool. Just keep your hands behind your head and kneel down for me."
Frank held her gun on the man until Johnnie cuffed him. Noah was just inside the hall, gun drawn. Kennedy was next to him, a step behind. Johnnie hustled his man between them, out to a waiting cop. The skinny woman's wailing increased. Frank distinctly heard her scream, "Timmy! Come out, baby," and the hair on Frank's neck stiffened.
He's still in here.
She motioned Noah to take the door to his right, and Kennedy the room to her left. Frank stepped into the bathroom. Rain water was blowing in from the open window. She reached toward the closed shower curtain.
"GET OUTTA HERE MUTHA-FUCKAS! GET OUTTA HERE OR I CUT THE BITCH! GET YO FUCKIN' ASSES OUT NOW!"
Frank froze, but her brain screamed, Kennedy. Fuck! He's got Kennedy!
The woman was screaming louder now. Frank heard Noah say very calmly, "Okay. We're gone. We're outta here. Just relax, man."
"GET OUT! GET OUTTA HERE! GO ON, MUTHA-FUCKA, 'FOR I CUT YO' ASS TOO!
Frank stood in the little bathroom, barely breathing. Automatically she clicked off her radio, abstractly noting the cracked, faded linoleum, the dirty white towel hanging on the bathroom door, the old toothpaste scum in the rusty sink. She heard scuffling in the hallway, Noah's easy voice, in the living room now. She couldn't hear him clearly, the woman's crying was drowning him out.
"GO ON! GET OUT!"
Then Noah's voice, louder than it had to be, for Frank's benefit. "Okay! We're all gone! We're all out of here, man. It's okay now."
A door slammed and the woman's screams receded. Through the open window radios bleated for back-up. In the living room, a man she assumed was Tunnel was repeating, "Aw motherfuck, aw Jesus, aw fuck."
"Hey, it's alri—"
"SHUT UP BITCH! I WANT YOU TO TALK I'LL TELL YOU. SHUT YO' FUCKIN' MOUTH!"
Kennedy said something quietly, then Frank heard Noah talking through the door. It sounded like he was trying to reassure Tunnel that he was going to be okay, that this could be worked out if he just stayed cool. Frank strained to hear him asking Tunnel what he wanted.