Cruel Justice

41

JUST AS SAM TIGHTENED his chokehold he heard a tremendous booming noise, and the wall behind Abie seemed to lurch forward. Distracted, the man eased his grip on Abie’s throat. What in the hell …?

Wait a minute. It wasn’t the wall moving. It was the door.

Someone was trying to break down the door. Someone was trying to get into his secret place.

Before he could react, the door bowed forward again, and a few seconds after that it burst open, knocking Abie several feet into the room. Abie fell face forward on the concrete floor, motionless.

Sam jerked his head around and saw a bulky man with dark wavy hair and—despite the fact that it was probably a hundred degrees outside—a tan trench coat. He was holding a gun.

“Freeze, you son of a bitch,” the newcomer said. “You’re under arrest.”

Mike tried to absorb the scene as quickly as possible. The man crouched in front of him had to be the pervert. He was tall and he was wearing a Marvin the Martian T-shirt and a red wig that had fallen forward on one side.

A few feet into the room, Mike saw a small boy lying on the cold floor. He wasn’t wearing anything except his jockey shorts. He didn’t move.

Mike would’ve liked nothing more than to grab the sex offender and pound his face against the wall a few thousand times, but he somehow managed to restrain himself. “Get down on the floor,” he barked. “Hands behind your back.”

Mike pulled his cuffs out of his back pocket, then was startled by a muffled gasping sound from the boy. A trickle of blood dripped down the side of his face; he seemed to be having trouble breathing. He might need CPR. As in immediately. Damn.

“Don’t try anything,” Mike ordered. He quickly slid the cuffs over the man’s wrists, then stepped over him to get to the boy. “Don’t try to get away,” he warned, then he crouched down beside Abie’s body.

“Are you all right?” He touched the side of the boy’s face. No reaction.

He turned Abie’s head around, placed two fingers against the neck, and searched for a pulse. “Goddamn you,” Mike murmured. “If you’ve killed another one—”

The man on the floor was smiling at him. Grinning.

Mike gripped the boy by the shoulders. “Come on, Abie. Don’t give up. Come back to us.”

Still no response.

Mike held his hand over the boy’s mouth. He didn’t feel anything.

Damn, damn, damn. He would have to try CPR. Maybe if he just got the boy breathing again, he’d come back.

Mike cleared the boy’s mouth with his finger and tilted back his head. As a police officer, he’d been trained in all forms of CPR. The techniques were slightly different for small children, but damned if he could remember exactly how. He’d just have to plunge in and hope for the best.

He started CPR, watching to see if the boy’s chest rose.

No luck.

Come on, Abie! He crouched down again and blew air into the child’s lungs. Don’t give up on us, Abie. Don’t give up!

The man in the wig hit Mike in the gut, knocking him onto his back. A follow-up kick to Mike’s hand sent his gun skidding across the room. Mike pushed himself back up on all fours, but before he could do anything, the man hit him again, this time with a foot pounding into the small of his back.

Mike fell down onto the concrete. His face hit the floor, momentarily scrambling his brains. Stupid fool. He’d gotten so concerned about reviving Abie he’d forgotten to keep his eye on the goddamn pervert. He shook his head forcefully, trying to clear away the cobwebs.

He heard the man coming at him again. Grunting, Mike rolled over onto his back. The man was almost directly over him. Straining with all his might, Mike raised his feet and kicked the front of the man’s kneecaps.

The attack took the man completely by surprise. He cried out, then crumbled to the floor, Mike saw his opportunity. While the man struggled to pull himself together Mike gave him his best roundhouse punch to the stomach.

The man screamed. Mike followed insult with injury—he caught the man between the legs with a swift kick to the groin. Mike’s instructor at the academy had been right—trite though it may be, it was the most decisive way to stop an attack. The man doubled up and went reeling across the room.

He fell back onto a mattress in the center of the room beside a camera. Just looking at the scenario made Mike feel ill. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what this was about. And when the lab boys developed the film, as they would be required to do, he would have to look at the pictures. …

Mike blocked it out of his mind. First things first. Apparently he hadn’t done as good a job on the sicko’s knees as he had hoped. The man was getting himself up and his legs seemed to be supporting him. He was desperately trying to pull himself together, gasping for air, leaning on the tripod.

“Stay down, you sick piece of scum,” Mike said, lumbering toward the camera. He was breathing rather heavily himself. And where the hell was his gun? “Don’t give me an excuse to shove you out a window. I’d enjoy it too much, and that’s—”

The flash went off directly into Mike’s eyes. He was standing barely a half a foot from the camera and looking straight at the bulb; the sudden illumination blinded him.

He reached out for the creep, but he was already gone. Mike could hear the footsteps of the man scrambling away.

Mike blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. Still blind as a bat, he stumbled toward the door. He couldn’t see anything, but he remembered generally where the door was. He made it to the top of the stairs, but remembered how dangerous and unstable they had been. He had almost killed himself coming up. And back then he could see where he was going.

He could barely hear the man’s footsteps now; they were far ahead of him.

Damn safety anyway! It was now or never. Mike extended one foot and lowered himself onto the first step. So far so good. He took another step, then another. If he just took it easy, didn’t rush, didn’t take any chances, he should be—

Suddenly .the ground went out from under him. His feet sank through the stairs, plummeting him downward. He extended his hands to break his fall, and just in time. He narrowly missed falling all the way through.

“Ben!” he shouted. There was no response. Naturally. Ben would be on the other side of the building watching the rear exit. And he wouldn’t see the perp because, thanks to Mike’s own stupidity, he was escaping through the front door.

He had to face facts. The son of a bitch had gotten away. The best thing Mike could do now was get back to that little boy and get him medical attention as soon as possible.

If it wasn’t too late.

The white light obscuring Mike’s vision gradually dissipated. He managed to extract his legs from the hole in the steps and to crawl back up. He ran into the room and knelt over Abie’s body.

The boy still had not moved.

This was the worst of all, the most crushing failure. Not only did the pervert escape, but the little boy—

Wait a minute. Did he imagine that, or did the boy …?

Yes! He moved. Praise God Almighty—he moved!

“Abie, can you hear me? How do you feel? Can you breathe? Does your head hurt?”

Abie blinked rapidly several times, then peered out through clouded, watery eyes. “Who …?”

“I’m a policeman,” Mike said, his heart nearly beating out of his chest. “I’m—I’m here to help you.”

Abie’s breathing slowly became more regular. His lips trembled, and all at once he began to cry. “Will you please take me home?”

“Of course I will.” Mike scooped the boy up and cradled him protectively in his arms. “Don’t worry about a thing,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be all right now. Everything’s going to be fine.”.