If it wasn’t happening to me, it might’ve been comical. I said, “Hit me again, asshole.” I pointed a finger at him. When he didn’t move, I said, “I heard Mack tell you to take the one-two side, the side Ruben bailed on.”
Mack answered for him, “There was a cedar plank fence. He was trying to get around. It was my fault. I should’ve waited until he was in position before taking the door.”
“Right,” I said, “And cappin’ my ass was just for fun?” I stuck my hand under my shirt and gently probed my shoulder. There was a narrow furrow no wider than a pencil, sticky with coagulated blood. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. When you chase a crackhead, you never know what’s going to happen.”
Mack snickered, “Those were just warning shots to try and get Ruben to hit the dirt so you could grab him.”
“My achin’ ass, warning shots.”
“You took us to him once, you can do it again. Where to?”
I sat back in the seat, let the adrenaline of the chase start to bleed off, and there it was, clear as day. The answer bubbled up like I’d wanted the name Kendrick to. It was hell getting old. The Thin Man’s name was Alan Cole. “Alan Cole.”
“What?”
“Go on down here and turn on Willowbrook.”
“Who’s Alan Cole?”
“The kid in front of Shawntay’s. The alley I caught him in was behind Huggies off of Willowbrook. It’s closed down now. A bar Ruben and Cole used to frequent. Cole had an old beat-up Bulldog .44. After I got it back to the station and got a good look at it, I didn’t think it would even fire. He took his ass whuppin’ without a peep.”
Mack turned down Willowbrook. Huggies, two stories on the right, boarded up with weather-warped sheets of plywood painted over and over with gang graffiti stood dark against a brighter skyline.
“So your thinkin’,” Fong said, “that this Cole might’ve been at the pad visiting Ruben?”
“Not necessarily. Cole just kick-started my memory. It’s worth a check.”
Mack spun the car around. “This is close, but I don’t think he’d have time to get here yet. I’m going to set up down the street and code five. You give us the layout of the inside.”
“You walk in the front there’s a long narrow bar, real long because that’s all there is. The bar goes clear back to the rear door of the place. There’s one row of tables against the wall on the left with very little elbow room in between. The entire place is probably twenty, twenty-five-feet wide. Toward the back there’s like this loft with stairs, but it was private, an office maybe. No one ever went up there.”
“Windows?” Mack asked.
“As I remember, only on the front. The back’s got a solid steel door.”
Fong leaned forward. “The windows in the front are boarded up, so if he’s using the place as a hidey-hole, it has to be from the back. It’ll be real easy to check to see if there’s any access. We could be wasting our time.”
I closed my eyes and conjured up an image of the alley from all the times I prowled it at night with headlights off. “There’s a steel ladder to the roof.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Willowbrook, a wide boulevard with the metro rail running down the center, hardly twitched, the asphalt void of all but a few vehicles. Trees on both sides, ancient majestic peppers, had stood guard for the last century. A shadow darted from the peppers across the first street. All of us saw it at the same time and tensed. We simultaneously eased our doors open. The inside dome light had been deactivated as in all the Violent Crimes vehicles. Nobody closed their doors all the way. Mack whispered, “Let him get inside. We’ll have him cornered. Fong and I will take the back. Skillet, you take the front.”
This time they played it smart. The front was boarded up with little chance of any action there. We moved directly across the street to the sidewalk and tried to stay in the shadows. I brought up the rear. Up close, I could see the plywood bolted into the cinder block with heavy lag bolts and fat washers so that the night people could not penetrate without a bulldozer against it. No need for me to stay at the front. Mack and Fong went around the side. I followed. They knew, understood the dynamic, and didn’t say anything. We now moved and acted like a team.
Moonlight reflected off the white paint on the walls. Chipped, peeling paint surrounding a long faded ad for Jeri Curl lit up the side of the building in an eerie, lunar glow. We moved silently to the area where the shadowy figure disappeared. The shadow could’ve been anyone. We came to an indentation in the wall, a door I didn’t known about. The only door not boarded up. Mack and Fong pulled their guns. Mack held up his and pointed to me and then at the side of the door. I nodded. They moved off. I took up my position hyperaware of my empty-handed vulnerability. Against the white painted wall, I looked like a fly in milk.
The space between Huggies and the nail salon maybe spanned seven feet, cluttered with trash bags and discarded rotting cardboard boxes that at one time held large appliances. Mack and Fong brought their guns up to point shoulder to cover their approach to the rear of Huggies. They hesitated at the end. Fong, to the rear, nodded and tapped Mack on the shoulder. They both moved at the same time and disappeared around the corner. The night turned empty and quiet. I listened hard. Nothing moved, no sound, no wind. I held my breath.
Then I smelled it. Gasoline.
I looked around for the source. Calmed down. I took a long breath and stuck my nose in the air, moving it from one direction to the next. The reek settled all around me.
Mack, by himself, came back around the corner at the end of the building a hundred feet down. He put his gun back in his holster. I waved at him to stop. He slowed down by a washing machine carton twenty feet away but came on, too intent on his mission. “The back’s secure. He must’ve gone in this side door and locked it from the inside. Mike’s on the roo—”
The low, squat, washing machine carton shuddered then jerked to one side. Mack flinched. Gas filled the air. It landed on his face and chest. His hands went to his eyes. He screamed, windmilled, and flailed, scared to death that at any second Ruben might light him up.
Ruben stood up, laughing a psychotic, maniacal laugh. In his hand he held a Bic lighter with a small orange flame. Mack went for his gun.
Ruben screeched, “Don’t you do it. I’ll torch your ass.”
I moved toward Ruben who had his back to me, twenty-five or thirty feet away.
Mack froze. “Don’t. I’m a cop. You burn me, and I guarantee deputies will hunt you down and make you wish you hadn’t.” Mack, strong, fearless, but I heard the crack in his voice.
The laugh again. Ruben was going to do it. He stalled only to savor the moment. Gasoline fumes burned before the actual liquid. Ruben just had to move the flame close to ignite the fumes, to touch it off. Mack was in a bad way. If Ruben lit him, there was no way to put him out in time. Immolation, the worst, most painful way to die.
Mack knew I was there, but couldn’t see me moving because Ruben stood between us. Ruben, already too close to Mack, moved closer, inches at a time. His laugh tightened. His hand moved higher.
Ruben abruptly stopped laughing and said, “Gaily be knight, a gallant knight. In darkness and in shadow. Traveled along singing a song in search of—” His hand moved down in a slow arc.
Mack yelped. He brought his hands up.
I moved low and fast, shoulder down. I gave an Apache war cry. It came out all on its own from the bottom of my gut.
Startled, Ruben hung the flame over his head.
Mack backed up.
I hit Ruben waist high, driving my legs, feet digging in. I had to hit him hard enough to get his finger off the little paddle that kept the lighter lit.
Ruben’s legs came off the ground. He grunted as I knocked the wind out of him. We plowed into Mack who couldn’t move fast enough. Mack saw his death in the shape of two bodies bowling toward him, a small flame held above like the Statue of Liberty. Mack screeched like a little girl.