Cut and Run

Chapter 22

We didn’t get access to the crime scene but it didn’t really matter. I’d seen enough death in my time to know what it would be like. The blood and the stench; the frailty of flesh versus bullets and blades; the surety that, somewhere down the line, I could be found in similar circumstances.

I waited in our car with Rink and Harvey while Walter and Bryce spoke to the detectives on site. The Miami PD had turned out, but so had the FBI. There were CSI techs and people from the coroner’s office. And there were a large number of reporters from the press and TV. The latter were our greatest inconvenience. Once we attracted an inquisitive look from a reporter who wandered off and came back carrying a BlackBerry. He was searching the screen then peering back our way.

‘Better move,’ I said to Harvey, who was our driver. Last thing any of us wanted was for the reporter to start yelling that there was a cop-killer in their midst. The police on scene might act first and ask questions later.

Harvey started up the Chrysler and pulled out past the cordon of yellow tape. I averted my face as we passed the reporter but in my peripheral vision I could see him doing a double take between me and whatever was on his screen. But then we were gone and the moment had passed.

Harvey took us to a nearby strip mall where there was a choice of eateries. We entered the nearest diner and ordered coffee. I got the largest, most potent mix I could find on the menu then asked for an extra shot of espresso. Over the last few days what little sleep I’d had was in snatches of a couple hours here and there and I was in need of the caffeine kick-start. We sat in a booth where we could watch the entrance — old habit — but where we were out of earshot of any of the other customers. I called Bryce and told him where we were.

‘So what do you think all of this means?’ Harvey was referring to the identities of the men found dead in the apartment.

‘The cops are looking at it as a hit gone wrong, but I don’t think that’s the case,’ I said.

‘Me neither,’ Rink said. ‘I know Del Chisholm. He’s been in the PI game for years, and he’s always played things straight up. Can’t see him heading a hit team. No way.’

‘There’s no denying that he went to that apartment expecting trouble,’ Harvey pointed out. ‘All three of them were armed.’

‘Two of them only had Saturday Night Specials.’ Rink was referring to the .38 revolvers the men were packing. ‘Not the weapon of choice of most assassins.’

I gulped coffee. ‘That’s what’s troubling me the most. If you’d been hired to take out a pro-shooter, you’d take something along that was sure to put him down.’

‘There were three of them, don’t forget, one of ’em had an automatic. Maybe they thought they could take him out between them.’ Harvey sat back and ran a hand over his bald head. He didn’t believe that any more than we did, and was only adding conjecture to the pot to get the thought processes bubbling. He took a sip of his coffee, then said, ‘Unless they’d no idea who they were going up against. Sorry — rephrase that — what they were going up against.’

‘Stands to reason.’ Habit made me glance round the diner. People had their heads down spooning food into their mouths, or were reading the morning papers or texting on mobile phones. No one was looking our way. My eyes lingered for a moment on a man and woman sitting at a table near the exit door. The woman was a beauty. The man was ten or more years older than her. Nothing unusual about that. I turned my attention back to my friends. ‘My guess is that there was some other reason for them being there. They had no idea who this man was or what he was up to. What does that leave?’

‘They were after someone else,’ Harvey offered.

‘Or they went there at someone else’s bidding,’ said Rink.

‘How well did you know Chisholm?’

Rink see-sawed his head. ‘Well enough to nod in passing. I knew him more by reputation than from sharing a beer, if that’s what you mean.’

‘What did he specialise in?’

Rink was a PI and so was Harvey, but even they had different slants on what that entailed. There were different niches in the market that PI outfits concentrated on. ‘Far as I know he was happy with low-end cases. You’ve seen Cheaters on TV, right? That’s Chisholm’s usual type of gig.’

‘So it’d be a big step up for him to go to something like this?’

‘Yup.’

‘You think he was after this guy ’cause he was playing away from home?’ Harvey laughed under his breath at the irony of it.

‘Maybe that’s all they thought Rickard was up to.’ I’d already learned the killer’s name. And that of his wife. ‘I don’t think that Alisha knew what he was involved in. Maybe she didn’t trust him, thought he was up to no good, put two and two together and got five. She called in Chisholm to put some meat on her suspicions.’

‘Makes sense,’ Rink said. ‘But that doesn’t explain why Chisholm takes two heavies along and breaks into the apartment.’

It didn’t.

‘Sounds like an extraction,’ Harvey said.

We nodded along with him.

‘Alisha wanted out and asked Chisholm to help. They thought that by waving a gun under his nose, maybe intimidating him by way of the two heavies, Rickard would be a good little boy and back down.’

‘Big mistake,’ I said.

‘The worst kind,’ Rink added.

I looked again at the couple by the door. The woman got up and walked in our direction, heading for the restrooms on our left. She was a fine-looking woman. She was wearing a wedding band, and I looked away. Her man had stood up and turned our way too. He started forwards, digging in a pocket. Then he diverted to the cashier’s desk and paid their bill. He rested an elbow on the counter and talked with the young female teller. From where I sat, he was flirting with the girl. A job in the making for the likes of Del Chisholm, I thought. The woman came back out of the restroom and joined the man. They shared a joke with the girl at the till, then the woman gave the man a playful thump on the shoulder and they walked out the diner together.

As they went out the door someone caught my eye on the pavement outside. We were expecting Walter and Bryce, but it wasn’t either of them. It was the bloody reporter who’d been watching us outside Rickard’s apartment building.

‘Trouble, guys.’

The exit door had swung shut, but now it was opening again.

‘Move.’

The way we scattered might seem an overreaction to a reporter finding us, but there was more to it than that. The man wasn’t carrying a BlackBerry this time and he wasn’t alone. He stepped into the diner lifting a compact Uzi sub-machine gun. His three friends following him in were as heavily armed.

I went one way while Rink and Harvey went the other. It suited me: these men were after me, not my friends, and I preferred that their attention focused only on me.

‘Get down,’ I yelled at the barista at the espresso machine. I went over the serving counter in a dive, knocking the young man to the floor just as the bogus reporter let loose a hail of bullets at us. The machine was cut to shreds and scalding hot coffee splashed all round our bodies. The young man tried to claw his way from under me, but I pressed him down, even as with my other hand I went for my SIG. More Uzi chatter filled the room, joined by the screams and shouts of the customers trying to flee the chaos. Glass shattered and tinkled. Someone yelped in pain. Then I heard the crack of a handgun; either Rink or Harvey firing back.

I scrambled away, using the serving counter as cover. I made it all the way to the cashier’s till and found the young girl crouching under the counter. A minimum wage she would put up with, but not this. She looked at me, the gun in my hand, and screamed in terror.

I bobbed up. Got a snapshot image of the place and didn’t like it one bit.

There were people clambering over tables in an attempt to escape, while three of the attackers laid down an indiscriminate barrage of bullets. One old man caught a cross-stitch pattern of bullets across his lower back and went down. A woman was huddled over, cradling her bleeding face in her hands. I could see neither of my friends. Then there was no more time for looking.

The fake reporter spun my way.

He pulled on the trigger of his sub-machine gun, letting out a wordless roar. The rounds blasted chunks from the counter and I rolled away. Suddenly the cashier went silent.

Bastard, I thought. That was all, but it was all the galvanising I needed. I bobbed up again and fired a single shot.

The round hit the ‘reporter’ in his open mouth. Must have severed his spine the way he dropped like a stone. It was too clean a death for the murderous son of a bitch.

Had there been time I would have checked on the girl, but there wasn’t. I was pretty sure the Uzi had cut through the counter and also through her. Terrible, but there was nothing I could do about that now except avenge her. There were still three killers in the diner and they would murder other innocent people if I didn’t do something about it.

I came over the counter supported on one hand, already shooting with the other. I hit one man in his shoulder and he dropped his machine gun. He turned towards me and I shot him again, this time in his chest. Two down, two to go.

The remaining killers were mid-way down the diner. Most of the uninjured customers had managed to get out the way, but there were those who’d already been shot who either lay crying or were very silent. I saw one of the killers shoot a young man who was trying to hide under a table. There was no reason for it. The other killer was blasting a circular table that had been tipped on its end. It looked like a waste of bullets, because, other than pocking the heavy Formica they weren’t getting through. I caught a glimpse of movement behind the table, a dark hand holding a Glock. Then I saw Harvey lean all the way out and fire off a close-knit grouping of shots at the killer. Two of the bullets struck the man, once in the gut, once in his right thigh. It didn’t kill him outright, but it was enough to stop him shooting for a moment. Rink jumped up from the other side of the table and he fired and this time the man did go down. Half his brain now decorated the ceiling.

While all this was happening I wasn’t standing idle. I was already running at the final man — the one who’d killed the man under the table in cold blood. I should’ve just shot the bastard, but I preferred that he hurt before he died. Plus, I wanted answers.

Who were these bastards, and why had they come after me? What connection had they to Rickard and the person guiding him? Had they been sent by Wetherby?

Rink and Harvey held their fire. The man probably heard me coming, because he turned my way, bringing round the Uzi.

I kicked the gun away and smacked the butt of my SIG directly in the centre of his chest. The man was slightly shorter than me, lighter in build, and I was able to force him backwards with the pressure of my gun against his sternum. He checked against a partition that was smeared by someone else’s blood and the first thing he did was drop the Uzi and swing his bunched fist at my head. He was a player, for certain.

Blocking his fist with my gun hand, I used the angle to bounce my next blow to the side of his face. My SIG furrowed skin from his cheek, but he was already moving. He brought his knee up at my groin and I barely avoided it, but then he snapped a kick into my shin. Hurt like hell, but it would take more than that to stop me. His elbow sought my chin and I ducked. Then I kicked him in his shin. He rode the blow, looped his foot round the back of my knee even as he thrust at my chest with the palm of one hand. I should have been tripped, but he hadn’t caught me off guard; I stamped down with my trapped leg, centring myself, marrying my balance to gravity. Palming his arm away, I slashed my right elbow into his ribs, swung up outside his arms and back-fisted him across the nape of his neck in a classic move from Kenpo karate.

The man staggered away from me and the added weight of the gun in my hand made my next blow telling. I cracked him in the centre of his forehead and he went to his knees.

Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I jerked his head back, bending it painfully on his neck while I jammed the SIG in his left eye socket. ‘Who sent you?’

‘Fuck you!’

‘You want to die?’

‘Fuck you, man…’

‘Tell me who sent you, goddamnit! Was it Wetherby?’

‘Who the fuck is Wetherby?’

‘Who was it then?’

‘I ain’t saying nothing. Shoot me. It’s better than what I’ll get if I talk.’

I almost did pull the trigger. I thought of his cold-blooded murder of the man under the table and I would’ve been justified if I had shown him as little regard. But I didn’t. I just whacked him across the temple with the barrel of my gun and left him unconscious on the floor.

‘Maybe Walter’s boys can make him talk,’ I said as my friends came up.

The howl of approaching police sirens sounded like a pack of banshees was descending on us.