Reaper (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Max hadn’t been asleep for more than forty-five minutes when his phone rang.  He almost didn’t answer it, thinking if it was important they’d leave a voicemail, and he’d get it in the morning.  But then he remembered.  He was sleeping on the fold-out and Myra had his bed.  The extension on the nightstand would wake her.

“Shit,” he mumbled as he rolled off the mattress.  He said it again when the pain hit him as he put his feet on the floor, and a third time when he stood up.

Four steps to the phone, and he answered it.

“So, did I wake her?” Steve asked.  “She’s right beside you, huh?  What’s she wearing?  Oh God, she’s naked.  She’s naked, isn’t she?”

“Jeeze, Steve,” he looked at his watch.  “It’s midnight.  I just got to sleep.”

“How was it?”

Max couldn’t help but laugh, but he didn’t answer his question.  “Why are you calling me?”

“You got room for someone else?  Well actually, more than just one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, it’s like this; I was taking a leak and heard one of the guys just outside the door talking to his old lady on the phone, and she was apparently all freaked-out, crying, wanting him to come home, saying she was afraid, stuff like that.  And he was trying to tell her not to worry, everything would be okay, to just lock the doors.”

“Come on, man, why are you telling me all this?  Get to the point.  I’m trying to sleep here.”

“Well, I’m calling because after he hung up, I just happened to mention to him that Beth was scared, too, though not anything like this guy’s wife, and well, you know, he kind of asked if you had enough room for his family as well.”

“You mean you suggested it to him.”  Max let out a deep breath taken.  “And this guy’s a cop; one of us?”

“Yeah, but, well …”

“But what?”

“See, ah, the thing is, she’s Iranian, they both are, so basically a moving target with everything that’s been happening.  Somebody already put a note on their car calling them the Taliban.  And this cop, well, the Chief is using and abusing him like a ten dollar whore, so he can’t go home.  Got him meeting with the local Muslim community.  Apparently he speaks Farsi or something.  He’s stuck here, man.  The Chief needs him.

“Oh, for Christ sake.  Well, if he’s a cop, tell him to bring her over.  Wait, you said family.  Like how big of a family?”

“Yeah, that’s the thing, they have three kids.”

“Okay, okay, they’re still welcome.  I have room.  Just tell them to bring sleeping bags or spare blankets for the kids, whatever they have.”

“Well, it’s not that easy.  You have to go get them.  She’s so scared, she doesn’t want to even drive herself.  We’ve had more incidents.  Someone fired some shots into the Mosque on Fourth Street.  And for some reason the Jews are getting it, too.  That Synagogue on the west side has been getting so many threats, they’re gonna have to hire an answering service just to keep up with them all.  It’s a mess I’m telling you, a big ugly mess.”

Max closed his eyes.

“Her name is Raha Ahmadi.  I’ll give her a call.”

“She’s Farid’s wife?”  Max knew Farid.  They worked the same shift a time or two.

“Yep, you got it.”

“Okay, I’ll be on my way in five; make that ten, and text me the address.”

“Okay, but um, there’s one more thing.  There’s another one.”

“Another one what?”

Max heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Another one who wants to stay at your place.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Hey, don’t kill the messenger.”

“You mean loudmouth.  Another Iranian?”

“No, a Mexican.  You know the Press Information Officer?”

“Anna, yeah, so?”

Myra came into view and sat on the edge of the foldout bed.

“Well, I guess she went a little off script on one of her interviews.  She said something like the guys we killed were a bunch of cowards and that no true religion would condone their kind of behavior.”

“So, what’s wrong with that?”

“So, that little comment earned her some of her own death threats.”

“You gotta be kidding me.  …All right, so how exactly does that affect me?  Anna has a gun.”

“Well, she’s askin’ if her old man and the kids can stay with you until things cool down.  There isn’t anyone we can put on her house.  We’re wiped out, man.”

“You mean here full time?  Around the clock?  That could be days.”

“What can I tell you.  Want me to tell her you’re all full up?”

“No.  He’s cop family, too.  Tell him to come over.  Wait, how many kids?”

“You know them Mexicans.”

“How many?”

“Three more.”

“Jesus.  Same thing; tell them to bring sleeping bags.  Some of them are going to have to sleep on the floor. What’s his name?”

“Louis.”

“Well, you tell Louis not to get here before,” Max looked at his watch, “one-thirty.”

“Got it.  So, have you and this Myra chick, you know …”

Max hung up.

“What was all that about?” Myra asked.

“Ah, more people are coming.  Cop families.  I gotta go and pick one of them up.”

“Hey, you weren’t kidding about things getting worse.  …Sooo does this mean we’re bunking together?”

Max smiled.  “I guess so.  That’s definitely the upside.”

“You want some company when you pick ‘em up?”

“Would love it.  Could actually use your help.”

“We better let Beth know,” Myra said, standing.

Max slipped on his shoes and grabbed his Glock 26 off the end table next to the fold-out.

CHAPTER SIX

Max, driving his pickup, made the turn onto Raha Ahmadi’s street and slowed looking for the numbers.  His eyes, though, immediately caught sight of some movement near the end of the block on the right side.  When he looked again, he couldn’t see anything.  As he drove on, by the way the addresses were sequencing, it became obvious that the motion he detected was close to Raha’s house, so he picked up enough speed to make it appear as if he was just passing by.

“Hey, I think you passed it,” Myra said.

“Yeah, I know, but I saw something I want to check out.”

“Saw what?”

“I saw some movement near the house.  It’s probably nothing, but I just want to be sure.”  He turned right at the corner, slowed, cut his lights, switched off the engine, muscled the steering wheel to the curb half a block down, and used his parking brake to stop so the brake lights wouldn’t flare.  “I’ll be right back.”

“You sure you should be doing this, Max?  You just got out of the hospital.”

“Nobody else here to do it.  Like I said, though, it’s probably nothing.  I’ll leave the keys.”

With that, Max opened his door, stepped out, pressed it closed, and walked back to the corner.  He stood in one of the deeper shadows staring toward Raha’s house.

There, there it was again.  Somebody was standing between the fence next to the driveway and a parked car.  As Max watched, the silhouette went toward the house and disappeared from sight.

Max reached for his phone with the intention of calling it in, but two things stopped him.  First, the backlit screen might give away his position and let the prowler, if it was a prowler, know he was being watched.  The other thing that prevented him from calling was that whatever was going on there, innocent or wrong, would happen before a beat officer could even be dispatched.  Nope, I gotta take care of this myself, he thought.

He plotted his path to the house, using bushes, trees, cars, and the darkest shadows to conceal his approach.  Just as he stepped off, the figure returned to the location between the car and fence and squatted down out of sight.

It was the perfect time for Max to make his move.  After taking his first few steps he saw a flickering light reflecting off the side of the car.  This confused him for about one second before he understood what he was witnessing …fire.  He started running at that point and was immediately rewarded with severe pain in his injured leg.  He pushed on through it and as he did, he pulled his Glock from the waistband of his shorts.

Within just a second or two, the figure stood full up, holding what couldn’t be anything else but a lit Molotov cocktail and moved around the back of the car toward the front of the house.  Whoever it was, was so focused on his task he had no idea that Max was coming up fast.  That is until a horn sounded about half a block away on the opposite side of the street.

The one with the firebomb stopped mid-stride, looked first toward his partner, then started looking around, finally seeing Max who was still one and a half houses away.

Most people would have probably just dropped the thing at that point and run, but whether it was because Max was limping badly and the crook didn’t see him as much of a threat, or because he was just mean-ass stupid, he didn’t run.  Instead, he cocked his arm back in preparation for throwing it at Raha’s front window.

From less than one house away, Max stopped, planted, shouted, “Police!” and fired two rounds at the assailant.

The bomber staggered just a half-step to his right, dropped the bottle, which didn’t break, but did spill its content, that did catch on fire, and took off running away from Max, bent slightly on the side, with one of his shoes in flames.  Max sighted on the fleeing figure’s back, putting the white dot right where his spine would be, but decided not to shoot.  The threat was over, and Max believed he’d hit him anyway, which would mean they’d eventually identify him when he showed up for treatment with a gunshot wound.  He continued to watch as a car, blacked-out, pulled from the curb, and the runner jumped in still burning.  Two seconds later, the bomber and his lookout were gone.

At the same time the suspect vehicle turned the corner and raced away, Myra, driving Max’s pickup, came up behind him, slamming on the brakes.

“What happened?  I heard shots,” she said as she got out of the truck.

Max pointed to the puddle of gasoline burning on the sidewalk and the glass bottle next to it.  “I guess it was something after all.  I think I hit him.”

“You shot him?  I don’t believe this.  Why would somebody do that?  …Hey, are you okay?”

“My leg hurts a little.  Other than that, I’m good.”

Myra reached in the truck and grabbed her bag.

The front door of the house across the street opened and a man in his sixties stepped out, keeping a hand behind his back.  Max immediately figured the man was holding a pistol.

Max pulled his badge off his belt, held it high, and shouted, “Police officer!  Everything’s okay, sir!  There was an intruder, but he’s gone now!”

The man waved his free hand and backed up into the house, closing the door.

Good man, Max thought.  Protecting his family.

Max pulled out his phone, skipped 911, instead calling the on-duty Communications supervisor, Heidi.  He explained what happened, asked for an officer to come by for the report, and suggested the hospitals should be notified to look for a gunshot patient who possibly also suffered a burn to one foot and leg.  He then told them to call Raha and tell her he was outside and things were safe …for now.

As they waited for both the officer to arrive and Raha to come to the door, Myra said, “What is it with you; two shootings in what, a week or so now?  Maybe I should reconsider my options.”

Options?

Smiling, she directed him to the headlights of the truck, where she took a quick look at his leg and informed him that it appeared as if one of his stitches had torn out, but the others would still do the job until a doctor could look at him.

The porch light went on at Raha’s place, and the curtain in the window next to the door moved, so both Max and Myra walked toward the house.

Raha Ahmadi was a short, rail-thin woman, with dark, almond-shaped eyes, still wet from crying, and boot-black hair that touched her shoulders.

“What happened?” she asked.  “What were those sounds?”

“There was someone in your yard, but he’s gone now.  You’re safe,” Max replied.

“In my yard?  What was he doing in my yard?”

“He tried to set a fire.  Are the kids ready?  We’ll go to my place.  Nobody will bother you there.”

In a soft voice she said, “Yes, I think so.”

The question momentarily got her mind off what just happened, so Max kept it up.  “Do you have everything you need for tonight and tomorrow morning; any special food for the kids, clothes, how about some sleeping bags?  You’ll have a bedroom to yourself, but the bed may not be large enough for all four of you.”

Raya looked a little overwhelmed by it all so Myra put her arm around her shoulders and said, “Here, let me help you.  We’ll put everything in your car.  Max will drive, and I’ll follow in his truck.  You’re completely safe now.  Two other families will be staying with us for the same reason.”

Us
? She said us, Max thought.  I guess that means Myra will be hanging out for a while.  Crazy.  We just met.  A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

A blue and white pulled up out front and Max went to meet the officer.

Her name was Maureen Cooney, a female cop with hair the color of a Mailbu sunset, and a personality with no reverse gear to it.  Max once watched her deck a tatted-up gangster with a right hook to the temple because he didn’t want to be handcuffed …she had her pepper spray canister balled-up in her fist.  Before she joined the P.D., she competed in the summer Olympics as a sprinter and long jumper and still ran in the Police and Fire Games.

Max explained what happened, showed her the Molotov cocktail that had by then burned out, pointed out the ejected casings from his pistol on the ground near the location he fired his shots, showed her where the getaway car had been parked, and the route of escape of the assailant.  As they walked the path, they couldn’t see any blood, but that wouldn’t be unusual if the bullet hit him in the upper body, as Max suspected.  If there was bleeding on the outside, most of it would have been absorbed by clothing.

While they talked, Max also asked her what else was going on in the city.

“Things are stupid crazy right now,” she said.  “We’re going call to call, everyone’s seeing shadows.  The mayor and half the council are asking for a cop to be assigned to their house for protection, which is funny since they cut our pay and benefits so much that we’re something like three hundred bodies short.  Assholes.”

“So what’s the Chief doing about it?”

“Ah, I think he’s assigning someone to the mayor’s house at night and parking a marked car, without an officer, in front of the others.  Should have told them to pound salt, if you ask me.”

Max’s cellphone rang.  It was Farid, Raha’s husband.

“I heard.  She okay?” Farid asked.

“Yeah, she’s fine.  She and Myra are getting her things into the car now.”

“Myra?  Who’s Myra?”

“Oh, ah, it’s too long of a story, but she’s with me.”

“I thought you were flying solo?”

“Well, you know.  Hey, the main thing is your wife’s fine and so are the kids.  When do you get off? You can stay if you want.  It’ll be crowded, though.”

“I won’t be able to get away until late this morning.”  He lowered his voice and cupped the mouthpiece on his phone with a hand.  “Keep this to yourself, the FBI has an address on the west side for those guys from the mall.  They’re going to hit it about 6 AM.  I gotta be there in case they need an interpreter.”

“Our guys involved?” Max asked.

“Just me.  This is strictly an FBI – Homeland Security show.  I think they want to show off all their toys and make it look like they know what they’re doing.”

“Know how they got the address?”

“Naw, you know how the feds are, they don’t say anything to the locals.”

“Well, maybe this will put an end to it …in our area anyway.  That would be a good thing.”

“Yeah, maybe.  Do me a favor.  Ask my wife to call me when she gets settled at your place.  Yeah, and thanks, man.  I really appreciate it.  She’s scared to death, and it sounds like for good reason, too.”

“Not a problem.  You’d do the same thing for me.”