Sin City Homicide

12

Sitting on the hood of his Mustang in the middle of a rundown apartment complex, Captain Alma Parr lifted his Browning.45 caliber handgun. The gun was the 1911 model. Browning had designed it for the army, and it had passed the Ordnance Department’s highest level of testing for reliability, including the continuous firing of six thousand rounds without jamming. It was the most reliable handgun ever made. The army had dumped it because NATO refused to approve its use. Parr had bought as many as he could find and required his detectives to carry them.

He looked at the fresh tattoo still healing on his right biceps. A dragon ran across his collar bone, over his shoulder, around his biceps, and down his forearm to the tip of his wrist. He flexed the bulging muscles beneath it a few times, and waves spread through the ink, stretching and contracting it.

Parr glanced around him. This was the barrio, MS-13 territory. They were one of the most dangerous gangs in the world. None of them would think twice to pop a high-ranking cop in broad daylight.

The red-brick complex made a U shape around the courtyard where he was parked, right in the middle. He had no backup, no officers undercover. No one even knew he was there.

The tingling of fear in his belly excited him. It made him want it more, to fight harder. Fear was his old buddy, and he looked forward to reuniting with it. It reminded him of his time in the burned-out buildings of Fallujah, left alone with his rifle and only enough rations for one week. Take out as many sonsabitches as possible. Those were the only orders he could remember.

He heard voices nearby and looked over. Three men came out of one of the buildings and headed toward an El Camino parked at the curb. They were laughing, and one of them threw his head back. Parr could see the outline of a handgun in the front of his pants, tucked in tightly against the belt.

Parr slid off his hood and ducked behind his car. The El Camino was about thirty feet away. He waited until they were closer… just enough. When the men were ten feet from their car, Parr bolted out, his sidearm drawn. He was there so quickly that the men stood frozen. Then the man with the handgun went for it, and Parr fired.

The round went clean through the man’s hand, and he screamed and doubled over, pressing on the wound, trying to stop the flow of blood.

“What the fuck?” yelled the oldest man, who had a bad mustache.

Parr ran up, grabbed him by his throat, and spun around, slamming him against the hood of the El Camino. He turned and grabbed the handgun out of the other man’s pants. The injured man was sitting on the grass with his shirt wrapped around his hand, shrieking about needing to go to a hospital. The third man raised his hands.

“Get on the ground,” Parr said. He complied, and Parr turned his attention to the man he had pinned on the hood. “You lied to me, Mateo.”

“What? About what?”

“You told me Rico was gonna be at the drop with two keys he took off that barbequed body.”

“What body, man? I don’t know what you talkin’ about, white boy.”

Parr punched the man in his genitals.

“Fuck me! Besa mi culo, puto!”

Parr grabbed Mateo’s genitals, felt for the testicles, and began to twist. Mateo screamed.

“You remember now?”

“All right, man. All right!”

Parr let go. “The body in the car. That’s all I care about. I don’t give a shit about the keys. You can keep those. I want the concha who merced the body.”

“Somebody told Rico ’bout it.”

“Somebody or you?”

“No, man, it wasn’t me. I swear it, man. On my moms, I swear it.”

“Who then?”

“I heard it was a cop.”

Parr grabbed Mateo’s testicles again and violently pulled, making him scream again and swear in Spanish.

“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me, Mateo.”

“I ain’t lyin’. I swear, man. I ain’t lyin’.”

He released his grip. “What cop?”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

“Well, you better gimme somethin’ if you wanna have kids, ese.”

“I heard from my boy, Chico. He said some cop took five G’s and told Rico and them ’bout it. Said you’d be waitin’ for him when he went over there. That’s why Rico didn’t go.”

“What cop? What does he look like?”

“I don’t know, man. On my moms, I don’t know.”

“Give me Chico’s address.”

“All right, man. I’ll give it, I swear.”

Parr pulled out his phone and opened a notepad app. “Type.”

Mateo typed in an address and handed the phone back. “Yo, you gotta call an ambulance.”

Parr looked at the address then away put the phone. He glanced back at the man on the grass. He was pale, and his shirt was soaked in blood. “Drive him, Mateo. He ain’t gonna die yet.”

As he walked to his car, Parr tried to look in his side mirrors. He had kept the handgun he’d taken from one of the men, but he was certain the other two were armed as well, and they would definitely have firearms in the car. They stared at him with venom but didn’t reach for anything. He got in, started his Mustang, and peeled out before speeding away.

The address was in a nearby low-income housing project, and he knew the area. The homes had been government-subsidized during the real estate boom, and after the crash, owners couldn’t give them away because no one thought they were even worth the taxes. A few of the wealthier residents had bought them and rented them out to illegal immigrants and vagabonds, people who didn’t have identification, credit, or steady employment.

The one thing that always struck Parr about those neighborhoods was the corners. Sometimes, as many as twenty young men were wasting their days away there. Streetcorners were the ghetto forums where gossip was traded along with goods-mostly guns and drugs, but sometimes hookers, illegal porn, and false IDs. As he passed a light, a man on a corner held out his arms, challenging him. He chuckled to himself and continued driving.

The red-brick home at the address Mateo had given him was a modest two-story with a lawn that looked as if it hadn’t been cut in years. He drove past it then spun around the block before parking two houses away. Parr leaned back in his seat and watched. He turned on the CD player, blaring Creedence Clearwater Revival. He turned it down until it was loud enough that he could just barely hear it.

The neighborhood was quiet, and no one waited on the corners. Even the pit bulls, which he knew should be prominently displayed, were inside. The locals had been tipped off.

He punched his steering wheel. “Damn it!” He would have to pay another visit to Mateo.

As he reached down to turn on the car, he saw the curtains of the home he was watching open about six inches then close quickly. Mateo could deny he’d tipped off Chico, but he couldn’t deny it if he had given Parr the wrong address. Chico was probably in that house.

Parr took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. There was a shotgun in the trunk, but he opted against it in case civilians were inside. Most of the dope dealers, even the ones making six figures a year, still lived with their parents. The trunk also held a Kevlar vest, and he thought for a moment about putting it on but decided against it. He was probably being watched from all sides right now. If they knew he was sporting a vest, they would only aim at his head.

He looked behind him at all the houses on the street, but when he got to the driveway, he didn’t hesitate. If he did, they would see his fear and know he didn’t have an army of officers waiting around the corner. He opened the chain-link fence, walked right up to the door, and knocked. He rang the doorbell a few seconds later and glued his eye to the peephole. He couldn’t see into the house through the peephole, but he would be able to see light if no one was on the other side, looking out. He kept his eye on the light, and the second it went dark, he cocked up his leg and bashed his boot into the flimsy door.

Splinters rained down as the door slammed into the face of a Hispanic man in his twenties. The man grabbed his nose as blood began to flow. He tried to lift the sawed-off shotgun in his right hand. It was too late for Parr to go for his sidearm, so he grabbed the shotgun. The barrel was pointed at his hip, and he twisted to the side just in time for the buckshot to spray behind him.

“Motherfucker!” the man yelled.

Grunting, Parr braced his legs and pushed back, slamming the man into the wall. He wrapped both hands around the handle of the shotgun and got his finger over the trigger. He pulled it, spraying another shot into the floor and loosening the man’s grip with the recoil. Holding his finger under the trigger, he prevented another shot from being fired.

Parr spun with his elbow up, and it impacted against the man’s nose and flung his head back. He landed a punch into his throat while his head was up, and the man gasped for air. Parr ripped away the shotgun and threw it behind him. He pulled out his Browning and pressed it into the man’s left eye.

“You have ten seconds,” Parr said, breathing hard. “I don’t like what I hear, you die.”

“Fuck you, puto.”

He cocked back and slammed the butt of his gun into the man’s nose. It crunched, and the blood that was already flowing erupted down his neck and chest. Parr spun him to the ground onto his stomach. He put his knees into the man’s back and lifted his chin with his palms, putting pressure on his spine. He lifted until the man screamed then lowered him.

“I lied. I won’t kill you. I’ll turn you into a fucking vegetable so you can lie in bed all day. You won’t move. You won’t talk or fuck or shit or eat. You’ll just lie there.” He lifted the man’s chin again, evoking another scream. “You’re Chico, right, asshole?” He lifted higher.

“Yeah,” he gasped though his air was being cutting off.

“Good, now we’re getting somewhere, Chico. Was it Mateo who told you I was comin’ just now?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, good. Few more questions, and you’ll never see me again. All right? But if you lie to me, I’m comin’ back here. Not during the day, though. I’m going to sneak in here at night while you’re sleeping, and I’m going to cut your guts out and feed ’em to you. Then I’m gonna cut up any other fuckers in this house. I don’t care if it’s your daddy, your mommy, or your nana. You feelin’ me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I feel you.”

“Good. Now, where are the two keys you got off the body in the car that was burned up?”

“They downstairs.”

“Where downstairs?”

“In a cabinet. You just go down, and it’s by the window.”

“You merc that poor bastard I found?”

“No way, ese. I don’t do that shit.”

“Could’a fooled me with the shotgun you said hello with.”

“That was for protection, man. I ain’t never killed nobody. Fuck, I just deal, man. That’s it. I just want that paper. I ain’t tryin’ to get no life in prison.”

“Let’s pretend for a minute I believe you. Then who’s responsible for that body?”

“It was a cop, man. A fuckin’ cop did that shit.”

“See, now here’s the problem. Mateo told me that a cop got paid off to tip you last time we were supposed to meet. So, one of you is playing me for a bitch, and that ain’t the right move.”

“Nah, man, it’s the truth. Cop did that body, and then when the keys was gone, he got five G’s when he ratted you out.”

“What cop was it? Did you see him?”

“Nah, I talked to him on the phone, though, yo.”

“What was his name?”

“Jon, man. Jon something.”

“Jon what?”

“Stanton.”