Lethal Rage (12 page)

“He's right in front of you,” the non-queasy medic said.

His partner was bent over and looked closer to puking than Jack felt.

If Sy can handle this, so can I.
Jack forced himself to straighten up and survey the room. It was tiny, no more than ten feet square and windowless. To say it was dirty was to call the Great Wall of China a fence. Grey and brown . . . stuff . . . clung to the walls. Except for the quarter circle where the door opened against the wall, the floor was buried beneath years of garbage: old newspapers yellow and black with age and rot, fast-food containers overgrown with mould, shit. Human shit. The doctor was being literal when he said Bernard didn't leave the room.

Bernard was a human-shaped mound on top of a cot growing out of the floor's wasteland. The foot of the bed was inches from the door and Jack couldn't make out where Bernard ended and the cot began. All he saw was a congealed mass of garbage and shit. From what he could tell, Bernard was skin and bones. A beard matted with filth covered his chest, but Jack could still see the ribs standing out painfully against the too-thin skin.

“What's . . . what's wrong with his feet?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” Sy agreed. “Before we go touching him, let's find out what the worker thought was worse than the living conditions.”

The non-queasy medic spoke. “The doctor said it was some kind of fungus.”

“No fucking kidding.”

The medic reluctantly moved into the room. “Bernard, I'm just going to take a look at your feet. Okay?”

“Sure.” Bernard's voice was surprisingly strong coming from such a wasted body.

Jack couldn't help himself. He had to know. The medic was squatting in the arc of clear floor next to the door to examine Bernard's feet and Jack leaned over him, bracing himself against the door with one hand.

The medic peeled back the bedsheet and the cloth cracked in protest. Bernard's feet were bare and as dirt-matted as the rest of him. The toenails were thick and yellow, the colour of pus, but that was not the worst. They had grown so long they had curled under the toes and were in danger of growing into the skin. The medic gently pried the toes apart and that's when the cockroaches that were nesting in the curl of the nails ran out across his fingers.

That was also when Jack lost the fight and puked.

Jack stepped onto the tiny square of warped, sagging boards that passed as the building's front porch and sucked in a lungful of dirty, humid city air. God, it was beautiful. But then, anything would be beautiful after the stench of Bernard's room.
How anyone could live in that filth. . . . And the cockroaches.
Jack shoved the image aside as his stomach lurched.

“Well, that was kind of nasty, wasn't it?” Sy asked, coming out to stand beside his partner.

“Nasty?” Jack asked incredulously. He spat into the weeds beside the steps, trying vainly to cleanse his mouth of the taste of vomit and embarrassment. “It was a lot fucking more than nasty.”

“Ah, grasshopper. You have so much more to experience down here.” Sy stepped aside as the paramedics wheeled Bernard out on a stretcher. Once they were down the stairs, Sy eased beside Jack and pretended not to notice as Jack spat into the weeds again. “You ever see the movie
Labyrinth
?”

Jack wiped his mouth. “No.”

“Cool movie. David Bowie plays a warlock or something. Anyway, in the movie they talk about the Bog of Eternal Stench and how, if you get even a drop of its water on you, you stink for the rest of your life. I truly believe the bog is somewhere in 51.”

“And Bernard got some of it on him?” Jack asked with an amused smile.

“Nope. I do believe Bernard's been fucking bathing in it.”

Jack laughed. Trust Sy to find a movie reference for a guy with cockroaches nesting in his toes. The laughter gurgled to a stop as his stomach heaved.

“Well, well, well. Look who we have here.”

Jack straightened. The ambulance was pulling away — the good doctor would meet them at the hospital but had declined to ride in the back with Bernard — and Sy was watching the street with a pleased expression.

“What —”

There, crossing the street right in front of them as if he was coming over to chat, was Mike Reynolds, also known as Mike Smith, their small-time Black dealer turned snitch. He was shuffling across the busy street, keeping his eye out for cars and completely oblivious to the two cops watching him.

“He has conditions not to be down here, doesn't he?” Jack inquired pleasantly.

“That he does,” Sy answered just as pleasantly. “Why don't we talk with him and see if he has any more information he'd like to use as a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

They moved to the sidewalk and waited patiently for Reynolds, who was standing on the faded yellow centre line, his attention turned to the southbound traffic.

“I can't believe he doesn't see us.”

“No one ever said you have to be smart to be a criminal in 51,” Sy commented. “I'm betting he makes it to the curb before he sees us.”

“No bet. I wonder what he's doing down here?”

“Didn't he give us a home address from around here?”

“Yeah, I think. . . .” His words trailed off as something caught his eye. The crack addict jonesing on the church steps was up and moving with a purpose. Gone were his jerky, sickly movements. He stepped onto the street behind Reynolds, moving like he wanted to reach Reynolds before the police did. He'd pulled up the hood to the sweatshirt and with the ball cap and a large pair of sunglasses Jack couldn't make out a single distinguishing feature.

He might as well be wearing a fucking mask.

The addict had his hands tucked into the hoody's pockets, but as he neared Reynolds he reached out with his left hand; his right hand was down at his side, tucked close to his leg.

“Reynolds!” Sy yelled.

Jack went for his gun, but it was too late. Far too late.

The addict stepped up behind Reynolds and with his left hand wrenched the dealer's head back and to the side. His right hand came up, flashing silver in the heated air. Jack watched as a blade bit hard and deep into Reynolds's throat. The metal sliced through skin and muscle, spilling Reynolds's life into the open air.

The blood jumped from the wound, splashing against the windshield and side window of a passing car. The driver screamed — Jack could hear it through the closed windows — and slammed hard on the brakes. The car, a Honda that had seen better days, screeched to a halt, only to be slammed into by the car behind it.

The supposed addict shoved Reynolds against the second car, a Ford, and its driver screamed as blood splattered through his open window.

“Don't move!”
Jack hollered at the addict, his gun aimed over the roof of the second car.

The addict backed away from Reynolds and the dealer slowly collapsed to the pavement, the flow of blood from his throat sputtering out as he slid down the car's far side. The addict held his hands out to his sides, not in surrender, but in mockery, daring the police to shoot him as he backed away. A comfortable casualness showed his arrogance.

A straight razor, not a knife, dangled carelessly from the addict's right hand. The metal shimmered in the sunlight as Reynolds's lifeblood dripped from the blade.

“Don't fucking move!” Jack ordered as he began to sidle around the back of the second car.

The addict raised his left hand and Jack saw that he was wearing black leather gloves. The addict smiled and happily gave Jack the finger.

A sudden squeal of tires snapped Jack's focus and he instinctively leapt backward. When he looked up again, the addict was hopping into a blue Nissan that had skidded to a stop behind him.

The car tore away, the tires shrieking against the pavement. Jack sprinted hopelessly after it as it swung onto Dundas and accelerated into the distance. His feet plodded to a stop as he was left standing in the road, his gun held impotently in his hand.

He holstered the gun and pulled out his radio, but he heard Sy on the air giving a description of the car and the addict. Casting a final and useless glance down the street, Jack turned to help Sy with two hysterical drivers and one cooling corpse.

“Sit down and listen up, everyone.” Sergeant Rose waited impassively behind the sergeant's podium. She didn't have the ability to glare a parade room into silence, but she was working on it. A big woman with short-cropped blond hair, she seemed to enjoy her growing reputation as a man-hating lesbian or, at least, did nothing to refute the rumours. “Sergeant Johanson's booking in a prisoner, so let's get this done.” She read out the day's assignments at a steady drill-march pace, as if she had more important matters to discuss and was eager to get to them.

Done with the assignments, Rose set the sergeant's clipboard aside and leaned on the podium, surveying the room. All the officers recognized the look — it was a look most veteran supervisors had — and waited soundlessly for her to speak. Only the rattle of the overworked air conditioner dared to challenge her and even it sounded hesitant.

“First, Homicide wanted me to thank everyone for a job well done at the scene yesterday. You shut the area down quickly and got hold of witnesses before they could wander off. Good fucking job.

“Second, we've got a fucking serious problem. There's an asshole out there who isn't afraid to kill someone in front of two uniformed cops.”

“So what, Sarge? As long as they keep killing each other, what do we care?”

“Do you have any fucking brains in that head, Borovski?” Rose snapped, her words heavy with disgust and disbelief. “If he's that cocky now, how long until he thinks he should do a cop just to prove how bad he is?” She let that disturbing thought sink in for a minute, then went on. “I want this asshole stopped and I mean now, today. Take down his description and find this prick.”

While Rose read out the description — for what it was worth — Jack struggled to keep his eyes open. It had been a long night. He and Sy had been the last to leave the station. Jack had driven home with the sun well above the horizon. Homicide had interviewed him, reinterviewed him and then started all over again. He'd had time for a short nap, then had dragged his ass back to work less than six hours after he had left it. The joys of shift work.

And, of course, he'd had to tell Karen what had kept him at work. She had listened, horrified, then had given him a curt good-night and an even briefer kiss and left Jack to shuffle up the stairs alone. If he hadn't been so tired, her abrupt dismissal would have kept him awake. As it was, he had nodded off with his toothbrush still in his mouth.

“Anything to add to the description, Sy?”

“Nothing to the description, but —” he turned in his seat to face the rest of the platoon “— watch your backs with this guy. Jack spotted him first. He was sitting on the steps of the church across from 230 Sherbourne acting like a crackhead needing a fix. Hiding in plain fucking sight.” He shook his head. “Ballsy, very fucking ballsy. He was waiting to ambush Reynolds and he didn't give a fuck that Jack and I were there.” Sy paused, then added, “There was a backup shooter in the Nissan. I saw the barrel sticking out of the rear window. I think if Jack or I had gotten any closer to our boy. . . .”

Jack had left that little detail out of the version he had told Karen.

There was an ominous silence. Sergeant Rose knew when and how to break it. “You find this guy, be careful and remember: it's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six. Now go get 'em.”

Jack waited for everyone to clear the room before asking, “Better to be what?”

Sy looked at him, openly shocked. “You're telling me you've never heard that expression before?”

“I wouldn't be asking if I had,” Jack replied defensively.

“What did they teach you up in 32?” He rolled his eyes as he stood and stretched. “Aw, fuck, I'm tired.” He dropped his arms with a huff and adjusted his gun belt. “C'mon, Mason wants to see us. If you get into a jackpot, your job is to make sure you and your partner go home at the end of the day, so it's better to be judged by a jury of twelve than —”

“To be carried by six pallbearers. Got it.” Jack smacked his forehead. “Kind of obvious once you think about it.”

“Don't be too hard on yourself, grasshopper. I imagine you're tired 'cause that sexy little wife of yours was just happy you made it home alive and kept you
up
all day long proving it. If you know what I mean.”

“Don't I wish,” Jack grumbled as they plodded down the hall to the stairs.

“Trouble at home? Fuck, this place needs a fucking elevator.”

“Well, let's see. When I got home, Karen gave me shit for not calling to tell her I'd be late, although it never bothered her before. Apparently, now that I'm in 51, I'm supposed to call. Would have been nice if someone had told me about the new rule.”

“You told her your cell was dead and we were stuck at the scene and the hospital till three?”

“Yup. Doesn't matter that I didn't want to wake her. I was supposed to call. Stupid me for not knowing, right?”

“Absolutely,” Sy said, grinning as if he had heard and lived through this all before.

“Then, when I told her what had happened, she got all quiet and left.”

“Left?”

“As in left the house, and she wasn't back when I came in to work.”

“Any idea where she went?”

“Probably her parents'. That's where she goes whenever we have a fight.”

Sy thumped on the Major Crime door and waited for someone to answer before walking in. Mason was alone in the office, slumped behind his desk. His face was as saggy as his clothes were wrinkled.

“Long night, Rick?” Sy asked, dragging a chair over to Mason's desk and dropping into it.

Jack perched on a nearby desk. If he sat in a chair, he might fall asleep.

“Yeah. I can't remember what my bed looks like.” He scrubbed his face vigorously with his hands, then slapped them down on the desktop. He shot Jack a murderous look. “I don't know whether you're a blessing or a fucking curse. Every time you get involved in something, it means extra work for me.”

Jack shrugged. He was too tired to care what people thought of him.

“Any leads?” Sy stretched his legs out and snuggled back into the chair.

“Fuck-all. My guys have been out since yesterday afternoon trying to dig something up on our straight-razor boy, but if anyone knows anything they ain't talking. At least not to us.”

“No fucking kidding.” Sy yawned and both Mason and Jack unconsciously echoed him. “Anyone who'll slit a guy's throat in front of the cops wouldn't hesitate to do someone who talks to us. Fuck, Reynolds was proof of that.”

“Obviously, he wasn't planning on you two being there, but the fact that he still did it just adds that much more to his reputation.”

Jack asked, “If this guy is so ballsy, why didn't he have the shooter in the car open up on us?”

“I've been thinking about that.” Mason checked the collection of coffee cups on his desk, found them all empty and began tossing them into the garbage. He theorized as he tossed. “If the weapons we found at the search warrant are any indication, this guy is well armed, so it wasn't because of insufficient firepower. I'm thinking this guy may have steel balls, but he isn't stupid. He knows if he shot at you, whether he hit you or not, we would have dropped on him a lot harder than we are. A murdering drug dealer is one thing, a cop killer is something else entirely.”

“Smart, fearless and well armed. Well, ain't that just fucking peachy.” Sy wiggled in the chair, but gun belts just weren't designed for lounging. “And no idea who he is? A guy like that can't stay off the radar indefinitely.”

“Nothing solid. There's one guy we're looking at, but it's more wishful thinking on my part than anything concrete. Not a big player. Got busted for low-level dealing a few years back, but he's been clean since then.”

“Actually clean or just hasn't been caught?”

“That's why it's wishful thinking on my part, Sy. His name keeps coming up when someone gets whacked or there's a major play amongst the dealers, but we've never been able to get anything stronger than rumours.” Mason shifted his gaze between the partners. “I've read your notes but, off the record, is there any chance either of you could identify yesterday's guy?”

Sy shook his head sadly. “Not a chance. With the baseball cap pulled down and those huge sunglasses on. . . . Fuck, we'd've seen more of his face if he was wearing a Batman mask. And the hood of the sweatshirt was so big it was like a medieval monk's cowl. Like something out of
Name of the Rose
.”

Mason looked at Jack.

“Sorry,” Jack said. “I agree with Mr. Movie on this one.”

“You guys are sure he was wearing leather gloves? Like the kid at the search warrant?”

Sy nodded.

Jack asked, “You're not suggesting it was the same guy?”

“Fuck, no. That kid couldn't do something like this. But it's too much of a coincidence that they were both wearing gloves. There's a connection there. We just have to find it.” Mason dry-scrubbed his face again. “And you're sure it was a straight razor and not a knife?”

Sy motioned to Jack. “He had the better view.”

“Definitely a razor. He made no effort to hide it.”

“Leather gloves and a straight razor. It ain't much, but it's more than we had before. Now, fuck off,” he said with a weary smile, “I've got work to do. And if you want to earn some brownie points, you could grab me a jumbo coffee when you get yours.”

“Coffee? Fuck that,” Sy declared. “I'm going to the hospital to see if they'll give me a shot of adrenalin.”