Acts of Violence (26 page)

‘Fuck.’

‘Jack!’ Holt cried
in mock joy.

I realised what had
happened. From where I’d been standing, I could only tell the direction of the
voices. From where Holt had been in cover, he could tell the distance. He must
have heard the off-worlder’s shots or voice get further away, or maybe heard
his footsteps, because he was standing right in the middle of the hallway. Standing
right behind me.

‘I hoped I’d see
you again. I’ve got something for you.’

It didn’t take a
genius to know that something was a nice helping of shards from the block of
metal inside his gun. But as he spoke, I’d seen a shadow. The off-worlder had
heard an unfamiliar voice swear. Had heard Holt talking. He’d come back to take
advantage of the distraction.

‘Holt,’ I said,
keeping my eyes glued to the doorway concealing the other gunman. It was the
perfect time to come out with something witty. ‘Fuck you.’

I dropped. The
off-worlder jumped out of the doorway. Holt spotted the movement in time and
abandoned following me with the gun. Brought it back up again. They both fired
at the same time. From the squelching sound and the thud, I guessed Holt was
the better aim. Not that aiming mattered much with a shard gun.

Holt didn’t get off
freely though. The pistol might have been smaller, but the bullet it fired was
still devastating. It tore through Holt’s shoulder and out the other side. I
heard a
tack
as it hit the wall somewhere.

He didn’t drop the
shard gun right away. Only when I kicked it from his hand. Then I took my time
aiming at him. He staggered backwards, mostly distracted by the pain. It took
him a few seconds to notice my gun.

There was a window
behind him. I pictured him sailing through it and plummeting to the white
gravel below. He took a few steps back, nearly against it. I guessed he was
hoping for an opportunity to get through the door beside him. I considered
questioning him. But I had no relevant questions. Obviously I’d been right
about him helping Webster’s men to take me from the precinct. He shared one of Webster’s
pockets with them. No, there was nothing to ask him.

I’d have liked to
have used a shock stick on Holt and then kicked him through the window. Much
like the guy in Van’s club. But in the absence of a shock stick, I just shot
him. There was a crack as the bullet cut through the window behind him and a
crack spread straight up behind his shoulder. He fell backwards, but the window
didn’t give under his weight like I’d imagined. He simply rolled off it and hit
the thick carpet with the thud.

Holt would have
been Webster’s last bodyguard. I wondered if he had a panic room somewhere. Or
was he just waiting inside the room beside Holt’s body with a gun pointed at
the door?

‘You in there,
Webster?’ I called.

There was no
answer. No sound at all. I stepped up to the doorway. Pulled back the
revolver’s hammer. Gripped it tight. It would be stupid to walk right in. I’d
just take a quick look and see if I got shot at.

As quick as I
could, I darted my head forward and then back. I didn’t make it all the way
back. There was no need. Even the quick glance told me all I needed to know.
Webster was indeed in the room. But he wasn’t going to shoot me. In fact,
unless he had a voodoo priest on his payroll, I doubted he’d be doing much of
anything again.

I stepped inside. Kicked
the little peashooter away from his still, white hand, just in case. The puddle
of blood around him looked sticky and thick. If I had to guess how long he’d
been dead…wait a minute. I stepped back into the hall. Slumped in the doorway with
the left side of his torso missing was not a man in a black trench coat and
silver striped tie. It was a man in a police uniform. One of Webster’s. Not
only was Holt a dirty cop and an asshole, but he was a traitorous little worm
too. He’d joined the off-worlders.

Webster looked as
though he’d been dead a while. Too long for it to have been the off-worlders.
Holt had shot him. The old man lay on his front. Holt had shot him in the back.
He’d had a gun, though, so maybe he’d realised at the last moment that his
dirty cop wasn’t his dirty cop any more. I didn’t really care.

Anger bubbled away
inside me. Burned a hole through the top of my stomach and reached up to grab
hold of my heart. It squeezed and I turned back to the room and shot Webster
twice. Then three more times. It helped a bit. Probably just the loud bangs and
the recoil. I could probably have shot the wall and felt as good. I’d wanted to
kill Webster myself. Maybe bash his head a few times with something hard. But
he was dead now and wouldn’t be doing this shit to any girl again. That was the
important thing, I guessed.

It took me nearly a
minute to work out what my next move was. It was a simple one, but I realised
now just how little I’d considered what would happen after I got to Webster.

I tucked my gun
away again. It was empty, but it was also registered to me, so I didn’t want
the cops to find it here next to Webster, with five bullets from it inside his
frail and lifeless carcass. I took out the automatic just in case the other guy
had been wrong about company.

The mansion was
silent as I made my way back downstairs and through to the front again. The
rain had got harder. It made a firm but gentle patting sound against the grass.
Maybe I’d plant some grass on the roof of my apartment building. That would be
nice.

Back at the flyer,
I decided I wouldn’t even try to make sense of the controls. We’d just have to
bring the girls out in the same arc I’d taken with the bike. I suspected the
gorilla would know how to fly the thing. Van wouldn’t hire a bodyguard who
couldn’t use a variety of methods to get him out of trouble. Of course if the
gorilla was dead, we might end up walking, but that was a problem for later.

As I was about to
turn to the bike, a fist swung out through the flyer’s door and hit me in the
mouth. I took a couple of steps back but slipped in the mud and went down. I
dropped the gun too. Squeezed the trigger first, but the safety was still on.

The guy who emerged
from the cover of the shuttle and stepped into the mud made me freeze. I didn’t
recognise his face, but I did recognise his buzz cut. Bleached blonde.

I recovered quickly
from my shock and scrabbled for the gun. Running out of ammo seemed to be a
common occurrence with this guy, since he went for it too. He kicked at my hand
and ducked down to grab my gun. I slapped him. I felt stupid doing it, but it’s
surprising how sore and disorientating a slap can be. Especially one to the
eyes when the slapping hand is covered in mud. Besides, he was just out of
reach of a decent punch.

As the guy
staggered back, a gunshot popped somewhere close by. A
ding
against the side of the flyer told me it was aimed at me. Or us. I looked
around until I spotted one of Webster’s guys. Us. He didn’t care who he hit. He
wanted us both dead. Another pop. Another
ding
. He
was holding the gun in close at his side and clutching his upper arm. Since he
was coming around the wall from the front of the mansion, I guessed he’d been
hit in the off-worlders’ attack. Maybe it knocked him out. Maybe he’d hidden.

The third shot
splatted into the mud not too far from me. I abandoned my search for the gun,
which the blonde prick had thrown when I hit him. Speaking of whom, I had no
idea where he’d gone. He’d disappeared; probably around the other side of the
flyer. As a couple more shots came dangerously close to cutting my heroics
short, I dashed to the flyer, struggling not to slip, and threw myself through
the doorway.

Inside, I received
a kick to the ribs. Mid-flight, I realised he must have taken cover inside too.
I had my hands ready to take most of the kick. I held on to his ankle and used
it to pull myself out of the doorway. Rolled under that leg, and my weight
knocked the other from under him. He toppled over me. A bullet whizzed through
one open door and out the other.

We both jumped to
our feet and he lunged at me like a football player. I turned so that we both
hit the back of the flyer. Something came loose and dropped to the floor. It
was a plasma rifle. I looked at the blonde. He looked at me. Only one of us
would get it. Fifty-fifty odds. And I could hear squelching footsteps outside.

He went for it. I
ran. Gave him a shove as I did so. For the second time, I leapt into a full
dive through the flyer door. The other one this time. Behind me I heard the
bang of an automatic and the sizzling ‘
tszau
’ of the
plasma rifle. Both were aimed at me. Neither shot landed.

I hit the mud hard
and slid a few feet. As soon as I could, I scrambled to my feet and ran again.
Several shots from both weapons were fired in quick succession inside the flyer.
Then quiet. I ran around the front and spotted my pistol. In the sudden quiet,
my footsteps slapped noisily. Hoping the mud wouldn’t stop it firing, I grabbed
it and aimed into the flyer.

Webster’s guy stood
in the doorway still. He wasn’t much of a threat though. In the middle of his
back was a gaping hole. No blood gushed from it. The wound had been cauterised
by the plasma’s passage. The back of his coat was scorched and charred. As I
watched, a thin orange line slowly ate at the fabric until it faded to nothing.
It took a few seconds, but eventually he toppled backwards. Hit the mud with a
splat.

Inside the flyer, I
could see the blonde now. He was slumped in the back corner, the rifle lying
beside him.

I stood in the rain
for a minute. The pattering of it on the dead man was deceptively gentle and
soothing. I gave my shoulder a rub and a squeeze. It was sore. Van had done too
good a job for it to have opened up again, even after all the jumping about. But
it still hurt.

The bleached blonde
shouldn’t have been there. He hadn’t gone out the front door. There were only
two ways out. I was having trouble with my mind. It seemed to be going too fast
and too slow both at once.

Now that the rain
had washed off my pistol, I put it in my coat pocket. It tapped against
something. The comm unit. I pulled that out and looked at it. Stuck it to the
side of my head and brought up the image DeMartino had sent me. I studied the
area he’d circled. Where I was supposed to meet him to free the girls. I was
pretty sure I could work out how to get there. It seemed like a straightforward
walk from where we’d met the gorilla.

Next, I brought up
the thing’s call log. There were only three. Two were unnamed, but the third
displayed just the name I was hoping for. I reached out and tapped thin air where
it said ‘call’. I noticed my finger was shaking. I wondered if it was nerves,
adrenaline, or if I was actually afraid. Either way, this was a long time
coming. And if I was right, it was the only way for things to work out.

‘Yeah, what do you
want?’

 The voice was kind
of wheezy. But strong.

‘Detective
Lawrence,’ I said. ‘Seems like years since we last spoke.’

‘Mason? The hell
are you calling me for? Where’s DeMartino?’

‘We’ll get to that.’
My legs started to shake. I felt a little lightheaded. But I was damned if I
was going to have to sit down for a simple call. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Explain to me why
I would want that more than the sleep you just interrupted.’

‘So you’re not on
your way to Webster’s place?’ I was less of a question, more of a resignation.
I hadn’t wanted to be right.

‘The fuck would I
be doing there?’ I was losing him. Not that I ever had him.

‘I need to talk to
you about Lucy.’

Silence. I felt
sick. I had no idea it was going to affect me like this. It was just a call. Just
a conversation. Just words.

Still silence.
Lawrence was trying to decide whether or not he was going to take the bait. He
was also setting his comm device to record. Just in case.

‘What about Lucy?’
he asked. He used his nice voice. Or as close to it as he could with me.

‘I think it’s about
time I told the truth.’

FIFTEEN
| SET FREE

‘Go on, Jack.’

He was doing a good
job. The way he spoke made it seem like I was just a shaken victim of a mugging,
describing the perpetrators.

‘You were right,’ I
said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. ‘I killed her.’ I could feel the
tears in my eyes. Ten years and I was still seconds from blubbing like a little
girl.

‘Tell me what
happened, Jack.’ There’d been a hesitation. I could imagine the excitement he’d
be feeling. Probably overpowering the confusion as to why I was telling him
now.

‘There’s not a lot
to it. I guess after ten years, you’re hoping for a dramatic story about how I
descended into evil or some crap. The truth is a lot simpler. Boring. It was an
accident. She tried to comfort me when I was kicked out of the academy. Told me
something about how maybe it wasn’t right for me. I took it the wrong way. Like
I wasn’t good enough to be a cop. I hit her before I knew I’d moved. Took her by
surprise. She stumbled back and tripped. Hit her head on the sideboard. And was
gone. I think she was dead before she hit the ground.’

Lawrence didn’t say
anything. I was looking into Lucy’s lifeless blue eyes. Staring up at me. The
best thing that ever happened to me, taken away in an instant. By my own hand. It
was inconceivable. She’d been there only a second ago. Those eyes full of
sympathy and love. And now they were empty.

‘I loved her. More
than…’ I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. More than what? Anything? It
was true, but I knew saying it aloud sounded weak and meaningless.

‘Why didn’t you
call the police? Explain what happened?’

‘It wasn’t like she
fell because I kissed her. And I couldn’t let a load of men come into her house
and carry her away. Take off her clothes. Cut her open.’