Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (19 page)

Everything happened in a flash. One of those explosive moments where instinct and training takes over.

As the intruder entered the room I barked the word every criminal expects a policeman to bark in these moments: ‘Freeze!’ Quickly followed by the qualifier: ‘Police!’ But it made little difference. The intruder acted how every policeman expects them to act in these moments: by completely ignoring the request and making a bolt for freedom instead.

I went crashing through the door right on the intruder’s heels. But he was fast. He was off and hurtling back down the corridor at an increasing rate. Younger legs being fed by pure adrenaline. He was heading for the stairwell, I saw. Heading for escape. I hollered my police warning again and it had the same affect.

At the far end of the corridor I could see a big guy in a janitor’s uniform heading towards us. It was Harris. Big as an ox. He was lumbering towards us from the direction of the Nurses’ Station. Trying to cut off the intruder’s intended escape. Harris is big. Not fast. Just big. He looked like a grounded blimp blowing our way.

The intruder reached the stairwell door first and threw it open. I got there ahead of Harris. Don’t ask me how. My bladder felt ready to burst. I pulled open the door. Looked down the stairwell. Heard footfalls coming from above. Looked up. Saw movement several floors higher.

Then Harris barged through the door, almost knocking me off my feet.

‘He’s heading for the roof.’ I gasped.

Harris took off. It was as if the dirigible had ruptured and the sudden venting of air was catapulting him skywards.

48

^{___________________________}

There is something to be said about foot chases inside of buildings. For some inexplicable reason those being chased invariably make for the roof. Don’t ask me why. Never occurs to them for one second that better odds of escape may lie below, where more exits exist. Always the roof. For me, always an effort.

Harris steamrollered his way up the switching flights like a power-lifter doing a drill. By the time I’d climbed through five floors I was wheezing like a chain-smoker. I shouldered open the roof access door, with no idea which way the suspect and Harris had gone. No idea where Martinez was either. I presumed Harris had called the cavalry. Presumed swarms of gun-toting cops were pouring into Cedars-Sinai and blocking off every chance of escape.

I swallowed down tacky saliva. Followed the Glock out into the night.

A cool breeze pushed at my skin. Night-time city squawks. Night-time city lights. The roar of a helicopter a few miles away. The whir of venting fans echoing in their aluminum ducts. Rattling. I was at the end of a long flat roof section of the hospital complex. High up. No guard rail. Plenty of pitfalls and shadowy structures. Ideal for criminals to hide behind. Cautiously, I moved away from the stairwell door. Sweeping every nook and cranny as I went.

I didn’t have to go far before I spotted the intruder.

He was pounding across the narrow rooftop of a thin corridor block that connected this building to the next. Heading for the helipad on top of the adjoining structure. No signs of my undercover back-ups. I fell into a run, Made it to the bridge – just in time to see the intruder do a U-turn and start tearing back in my direction. I dug in heels. Raised the Glock. There was another figure beyond the intruder: Attila the Hun in a nurse’s uniform. Martinez was leaping onto the narrow connecting roof from the direction of the helipad.

I stayed put. Legs astride. Gun aimed. There was nowhere for our boy to go except down to certain death.

We had him!

Unbelievably, his pace increased. His head went down as he plowed straight at me. Collision course. I braced myself. I didn’t like the thought of wrestling the guy down up here, so close to a fatal drop.

Then something flashed behind the intruder. I felt a sharp sting against my cheek. Heard the dull crack of a whip echo around the rooftops. Rebounding off the aluminum ducts.

The intruder stumbled. His momentum carried him on a little as he belly-flopped onto the roof. I thought for one moment he was going to roll off the edge of the roof. Then Harris was bulldozing past me. Dropping onto the narrow rooftop and grabbing the guy before he slid to certain death.

We had him!

I stowed my gun. Stepped carefully onto the bridge.

All at once I was feeling euphoric. Dizzied by adrenaline.

I couldn’t believe we’d caught our killer so easily!

Martinez jogged up and pointed to my face. ‘You’re bleeding.’

I touched my cheek. Saw black blood on my fingertips.

Harris threw on the cuffs and flipped the intruder face-up.

My euphoria fell off the roof.

‘You shot me, pig! You fucking shot me!’

49

^{___________________________}

The killer known as
The Undertaker
closed the door gently behind him. Job done. With the makings of a smile tugging at his lips, he slung the stethoscope around his neck and strolled back along the hospital corridor. Tipped his head at the nurse behind the counter. But she was too engrossed in her computer to notice.

Right now the cops were busy concentrating their efforts on another hospital on the other side of the city. With no idea that he’d even been here.

His namesake, the other Randall Fisk, had held a poorly paid position in the cerebral department. Academically, he’d been a wash-out. Bottom five percentile. In other words, obtuse. That’s why he’d turned to the less intellectually-challenging pastime of bullying. That, and because his drunken father had mashed him to a pulp every night. That, and because his whore of a mother had encouraged his father. That, and because he liked beating the living crap out of all the other kids – especially the one with the
condition
.

When it came to brains, the killer with the adopted name of Randall Fisk was the exact opposite. An alter ego. So smart it stung.

He gave himself a congratulatory pat on the back as he climbed into the rented Chevrolet Malibu. Taupe grey. Sunroof. Only a thousand miles on the clock. There was a
No Smoking
sticker on the dash, strategically positioned above the ashtray. He lit a cigarette. Sucked hard.

There was a photograph in his pocket. He took it out. Studied it in the orange glow of the cigarette. It depicted a sunny day on the shores of a blue lake. Pine trees and mountains. Two people standing by the water. Embraced. Smiling happily at the camera. Looking like they hadn’t a care in the world.

He slid the picture back in his pocket.

Everything he did was for one of them.

He took his time savoring the cigarette. Then rubbed the smoldering butt out in the ashtray. Swung the rental out onto the main drag and headed for the Hollywood Freeway.

A solitary star shone brightly in the east. Moving smoothly against the filthy grey bowl of night. Big as a falling meteor. He watched it crawl across the heavens. Wondered if it could be the precursor to some cataclysmic event. A portent of better things to come. Was it normal to think of such things? Did regular people, mindlessly moving from A to B in their humdrum lives, imagine the end of the world and their part in it?

The killer known to himself as Randall Fisk leaned on the gas. Squeezing the speedometer’s needle past sixty. The rental soared up the on-ramp, loosing sparks as it leveled out. He tuned the car stereo into an all-night crooners’ station and slid down the driver’s window.

Sinatra’s distinctive vocal timbre pierce the night.

50

^{___________________________}

At a quarter after 4 a.m. the Station House was all but abandoned: just the usual skeletons manning the phones and draining the coffee machines dry. I was one of them.

I touched the Band-Aid on my cheekbone. Winced.

Martinez’s bullet had drilled a neat hole straight through the butler’s shoulder. Took a nice little nick out of my face in the process. The incident had been logged and passed on to Internal Affairs. I wasn’t expecting compensation.

As for our killer, he’d been a no-show.

And I was feeling disillusioned. Couldn’t help it. Lack of sleep was taking its toll.

Had I really believed he’d fall for my ruse?

I kept going over the possibilities in my head. Beating myself up. Maybe the killer had missed the news. Maybe he’d been scared off by the butler’s timely arrival. Maybe he was just too damn smart to trip himself up.

I thought about the wounded kid we had under armed guard in a room over at Cedars-Sinai. Richard Schaeffer had been bandaged up and then banged up for the night. In retrospect, his stupidity had been a big error in judgment on my part. He’d actually believed Marlene was critically wounded, but still alive – even after seeing her being carted away in a zipped-up body bag.

But no escaping the fact: my impulsiveness had gotten an innocent kid shot. Almost killed. Come morning, his bigwig daddy lawyer would be having choice words with the Commander. And I’d be listening to a wasp in my ear.

Through the glass partition of a nearby interview room I could see a pair of detectives interrogating a young Asian kid wearing street colors. The kid looked scared. He had a blooded nose. One of the detectives caught me snooping. Nodded in my direction. Then tilted the window blind closed.

I called Jamie.

‘Is everything okay?’ she sounded sleepy. ‘It’s the middle of the night. What happened? Did you catch the killer?’

I told her the bad news.

‘You’re lucky you didn’t lose an eye,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to come in?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Right now I’m not sure of anything, Jamie.’ I said. ‘Ask me again in the morning. I’m sorry for waking you.’

‘It’s okay. I haven’t been in bed long anyway. I’ve been running internet searches on the killer’s calling cards.’

‘Find anything interesting?’

‘Only that the religious angle looks the most promising. It’s corny, I know, but it ties everything together – especially with the mock interment. The ash on their heads represents penitence. And some cultures line the routes of their funeral processions with petals.’

I nodded. It made sense. I’d been thinking along the same lines.