Lethal Rage (2 page)

“What the fuck are you doing in there?” Paul yelled.

The man cringed. “I was sleeping, that's all.”

“Why the fuck would you sleep in a dumpster?” Paul shouted and Jack realized he wasn't the only one who had been scared half to death.

The man ducked into his cardboard fortress, fleeing from the angry giant's wrath. “I was just sleeping.” It sounded like a desperate plea for surrender.

“Sleeping. He was sleeping,” Paul muttered in disbelief. In control again, he spoke in a softer tone. “All right, buddy. C'mon out now. No sleeping in dumpsters. Someone's liable to throw you away with the trash.”

The man scrambled out of the dumpster and dropped to the ground and Jack recognized him from the Queen and Sherbourne area. An old, frail black man, he came up to about Paul's chest.

“Don't you have any shoes?” Jack asked.

“No, sir. Don't need 'em till it gets cold. Can I go now, boss?” He looked at Paul.

Paul laughed. “Go on, my man. Get out of here. And no more sleeping in dumpsters,” he called after the fleeing figure.

Paul sagged against the dumpster and laughed again. “I don't know about you, Jack, but I need a drink.” He took two steps away from the bin and stopped. “And possibly a change of pants.”

“All right, everybody. Settle down and listen up.”

The officers quieted down as the sergeant strode to the front of the parade room. Looking at the seven cops, he slowly shook his head. “Things are getting a little tight, manpower-wise, this week. There's only two on early days and you seven mutts, so if anyone wants T.O. for the weekend don't bother asking.”

A few cops quietly muttered obscenities at the announcement of no time off, but they ceased immediately when Sergeant Johanson glared at them from beneath bushy grey eyebrows. He had been on the job for more than thirty years and had heard all the bitching before. And in more colourful language.

“We got three on holidays, two on courses, and Stiller is off getting his AIDS cocktail shots after that crack whore bit him. So quit your griping and listen up. Frederick, Holmberg, 5102, twelve o'clock for lunch. Townsend?”

“Sarge?” Paul called from the back of the room.

“Now that Carter's back from holidays, we'll give you a break and let him have the newbie. Carter, Warren, 5103, eleven o'clock lunch. And Warren?”

“Sarge?” Jack looked up from his memo book. He was sitting at the first table in front of the sergeant's podium and tried not to squirm when Johanson speared him with his eyes.

“Next time you put over a homicide and call for a road sergeant, make sure the fucker's dead.” Jack felt his face heat with embarrassment as the platoon laughed. “For a fucking minute there, I thought I was going to have to go out on the road,” Johanson added after the laughter died down.

“Yeah, fuck up like that again, rookie, and you'll be walking a beat down on Unwin.” The voice came from the back of the room, but there was no laughter, only silence.

“And if I hear any more complaints about you gawking at the whores on Church Street while you're still marked on a call, Borovski,” Johanson snarled, “you'll be walking with him. Do I make myself clear?”

“Got it, Sarge,” Borovski said meekly, sounding so much like a pouting child Jack turned to look at him. Sure enough, the officer sitting next to Paul, or at least at the same table as Paul considering how Paul was physically distancing himself from the other cop, was sitting with his arms crossed defensively and a frown fixed to his fleshy face.

If you looked up
sulking
in the dictionary. . . .

“Nothing on the parade board to read out, but Detective Mason wants a few minutes. Rick?” Johanson gave up his position to the boss of the division's Major Crime Unit.

Mason was thickset, intimidating and, unlike most guys out of uniform, kept his greying hair cut short, but the goatee that hung down to his chest spoke of the years he had spent in old clothes.

“Morning, everyone. I know it's your first day of days and you're probably all eager to get out there and have your morning coffee, so I'll keep it brief.” He leaned massive forearms on the podium and Jack heard the wood creak in protest. “We've got a new problem in the division. An aggressive dealer has moved in and he's trying to take over the crack trade by selling higher-quality rock at slightly better prices. And he's doing something different to promote and identify his product. He's adding a bit of food dye to the mix so his crack looks black, not the usual dirty white or dull yellow. Of course, everyone on the street is calling it Black. So if you hear someone saying they're looking to score some Black, you know what they mean.

“Now, I'm all for free enterprise and shit, but one guy controlling the crack market in 51 is bad for us. The more suppliers and dealers we have, the more they fight each other and not us.”

Mason straightened and the podium sighed in relief. “We've been trying to get a fix on who's behind this new crew, but so far we've come up with zilch. All we know is that this crew is organized and violent. The last two homicides in the division are directly related to them. Seems the boss is not above more direct means of removing the competition.

“So if you find someone dealing Black, play it safe and call for another car to watch your back, 'cause chances are there's someone nearby whose job it is to keep an eye on the dealer. And word on the street is that they'll tolerate no interference from anyone. Including us.

“If you grab a dealer, give the office a call, and one of us will come down to put the squeeze on the guy and see if he'll give up his supplier. That way we can start working our way up the ladder. That's it. Thanks for your time.”

“This black crack,” Paul asked before the detective could leave the podium, “is it just darker than normal or really black, like me?”

“Glad you said that, Townsend, and not me.” Mason chuckled with the rest of the room. “Well, I don't think anything's as black as you, but, yeah, it's pretty damn dark. You'll know it when you see it. Anything else?” He waited a beat. “Then they're all yours, Sarge.”

“Thanks, Rick,” Johanson said, clapping the big detective on the back as he headed for the door. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get your asses on the road.”

“Jack, is it? Simon Carter. Call me Sy. Good to meet you, kid. And, yes, I have enough time on to be the platoon's old fart. Like Fish on
Barney Miller
.”

They had shaken hands in the station's back lot after dumping their duty bags in the scout car's trunk. Jack figured “grizzled old veteran” was a better description than “old fart.” To call his short-cropped hair salt and pepper was generous; there was a lot more salt than pepper. His face was worn and lined, and Jack wondered what he had seen to give it so many creases. His non-regulation moustache grew down to his chin, and it too held more grey than black.

Simon was a touch taller than Jack and the ballistic vest under his shirt appeared to be pulling double duty as a girdle. But anyone who mistook him for a stocky, out-of-shape cop obviously wasn't looking at the solid shoulders and the arms straining the black uniform shirt. Simon looked like he could scrap it out with a guy half his age and, judging from the scabs on some of his distorted knuckles, had — and not all that long ago either.

“Don't know if Paul told you, but down here we don't bother with the hats unless the media or brass are stopping by a scene.” Both uniform hats followed the duty bags into the trunk.

They climbed into the car and while Jack powered up the workstation Sy flicked on the lights and gave the siren a quick blast to make sure everything was working.

“We are set. Clear us whenever you want and if nothing's pending we'll grab a coffee. Sound good to you?”

“Iced coffee might be more like it.”

“Yeah, it's gonna be a hot one today,” Sy agreed. “But I need my coffee. The public will not want to deal with me if I haven't had my morning shot of caffeine.”

But coffee would have to wait.

“5103, in 11's area, at Street City. A male tenant has thrown bleach in another tenant's face. Use caution; staff advise the male can be violent. Time, 0727.”

“And throwing bleach at someone isn't violent?” Sy heaved a sigh and headed south out of the station's lot. “So much for my morning coffee.”

“What's Street City? I never had a call there on nights.”

“It's a community co-op kinda thing. They built a bunch of little apartments, nothing but single rooms really, inside an old warehouse, so it kind of looks like a town or village. Basically, it's a huge rooming house with a few unlucky staff to supervise it. We get a lot of EDPs down there.”

“Sounds like fun.”

Sy turned onto Parliament, joining the early rush-hour traffic. “Something tells me you ain't used to dealing with our kind of crazies.”

“Hey, 32 gets its share of the emotionally disturbed. Just that, when you have money, they call you eccentric, not crazy.”

“Well, no one at Street City is eccentric, then. I don't know if she's still there or not, but there was one old lady who liked to hug people, especially people in uniform.”

Jack figured there was more to it. “And the problem with that?”

Sy grinned. “She liked to hug you after covering herself in her own feces.”

“I see.” Jack nodded solemnly. “Note to self: don't hug anybody.”

Sy laughed. “That's generally a good idea anywhere in 51, kid.”

“5103, I just ran your suspect and he's on file for violence and weapons. Do you want another car to attend with you?”

Jack picked up the mike but looked to Sy, who nodded. “Sure, dispatch. If someone wants to drop by with us, we'd appreciate the company.”

“10-4, 5103. 5109, attend 393 Front Street with 5103 for an assault.”
The dispatcher received no answer.
“5109, are you 10-4 on the call?”

There was a lengthy pause before a reluctant voice answered.
“Yeah, but I'm a ways off.”

Sy snorted. “I bet he is. Lazy bastard.”

“Who was that?” It would take some time before Jack could recognize everyone's voice over the air.

“Borovski.” Sy spat the name out as if it was a bad taste in his mouth. “Watch your back around Boris,” he cautioned. “He's always the last one at a call and he's the first to cut corners on the work. He'll come across as your best friend, but he'll sell you out in a heartbeat if he thinks it'll save his ass.”

“Boris Borovski? Sounds like something out of a book.”

“Boris isn't his name,” Sy explained. “It's Scott or something like that. Everybody just calls him Boris.”

“How come?”

“'Cause he hates it.” When Jack stayed silent, Sy looked over at him. “What? Everyone in 32 was a team player? Someone you could trust?”

“No, of course not,” Jack said, a little defensively. “I just know how reputations can stick to people whether they deserve them or not. There was one guy I worked with. When he came to us from another platoon, they all warned us that he was stupid. Turned out the ‘stupid' label came from one mistake he had made three years earlier when he had first got on the road. He was a really good guy to work with.” Jack shrugged. “I guess I just like to make up my mind about people after I've met them, that's all.”

“And that's a good way to be. But all I'm saying is watch your back around Boris. Okay, here we are.”

On the short trip, they had left behind the mixed residences and businesses and crossed over into a commercial wasteland. The south end of the division was a desert of abandoned warehouses and weed-choked, deserted lots and thus a desirable location for movie productions. Some buildings were still in use and the Canary Restaurant at the corner of Front and Cherry was a favourite breakfast hangout for the foot patrol and traffic cars.

Street City was in an old warehouse squatting on the corner across from the Canary. A bearded, pot-bellied man and a scarecrow of a young woman with green spiky hair were waiting out front in matching navy T-shirts. Jack figured them to be the staff. The woman waved them over.

Sy parked the car on the other side of the street and he and Jack joined the staff on the cigarette butt–littered sidewalk. “What happened today?” Sy asked the man, but it was the woman — no more than a girl really — who spoke up.

“Lloyd and Mohammed got into a fight over the TV. In the common room. Mohammed was there first and the rule is the first one gets to choose the channel. They started arguing and Bob and me,” she gestured to her staff partner, “had to tell Lloyd to leave cuz he was making so much noise. Lloyd's always bullying the other tenants and hitting them. No one does nothing cuz they're all scared of him.”

As she talked, Jack studied her: besides her bristling lime-green hair, he saw that each ear sported a dozen or so earrings. But it was her arms that fascinated him the most. The arms hanging out of her too-big staff shirt were twig thin. He was willing to bet her elbow joints were the widest part of her arms and how the bones didn't simply snap when she flung her hands about as she talked was a mystery to him.

“A few minutes later Lloyd comes back carrying a cup in his hand. He just walks up to Mohammed —”

“Calm as you please,” Bob added.

“Yeah, just as calm as shit,” she agreed. “He walks right up to where Mohammed's sitting and throws it — splash! — right in his face. I thought it was just water, but Mohammed starts screaming, really bad like, and I could smell it.”

“Smell what?” Sy wanted to know.

“You know,” she said, spinning her hands in front of her as if that would make the proper words come out. Jack waited for her hands to snap off at the wrists. “Ajax or something like that. You know, what you use to clean stuff with.”

“Good enough. We'll need to get statements from you two later.”

“Yeah, we wuz already doing that when we wuz waiting for you.”

“Done this before, have you?” Sy suggested, smiling at her.

“Yeah, lots of times.” She paused and cocked her head. “You gonna arrest Lloyd?”

“If he's still here.”

“Yeah, he's in his room, I think. I can show you which one. Mohammed's in the laundry room, washing that stuff out of his eyes.” Her head tipped the other way. Jack figured it had something to do with her thought process. “Ain't an ambulance coming? We asked for one.”

“Speak of the devil,” Sy said, spotting the ambulance coming along Front Street.

“The devil?”

“The ambulance is here,” Jack interpreted for her.

“Oh.” She looked at Jack for the first time and smiled, showing him a full set of heavily stained teeth. “Hey, you're kind of cute for a cop. I'm Lisa.”

Jack almost introduced himself out of habit but caught himself. In no way did he want Lisa knowing anything about him. “Um, thanks. You want to show us where Lloyd's room is?”

“Hang tight for a second, kid. You chat with Lisa for a few minutes while I tell the medics what we've got.” Sy smiled good-naturedly and clapped Jack on the shoulder, then walked — slowly — over to the ambulance, stranding Jack on the sidewalk with Lisa.