The Reckoning (23 page)

“Okay…this is going to sound strange—”

“Jeez. Something strange in Niceville?”

“Are you wearing those earphones because you're hearing something?”

Mildred Pierce was starting to pace her cage and growl. Barbetta set the cage down. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“You picked up something when we were down there, didn't you? Something got into your head.”

Barbetta looked out into the night. He saw what looked like a blue shadow far away up the block, passing in and out of the streetlamps.

Somebody walking his dog? Nope. No dog.

Looked like a big guy, sorta bulky. Bulky and Dogless. Sounded like a law firm.

“Well, I did come away with something.”

“Like a buzzing?”

“Yeah. Like bees.”

“And the Chopin makes it go away?”

“Keeps it under control. Although Chopin wears you down after a while. I'm thinking of trying some John Coltrane instead. Blue Eddie gave me the idea. He has the buzzing too.”

That surprised Nick, and he showed it.

“Didn't know that. How long?”

“Years, he said. He thinks the buzzing is what drove Rosamunda out of town.”

“And he uses Chopin?”

“Says he does.”

“You know Jack Hennessey?”

“Of course. He was down there too.”

“He's wearing headphones now.”

“I know. I ran into him at the Bar Belle and he said he was hearing something weird. I told him about the headphone thing and he went straight off to Best Buy. I been wondering, who were the medics who were there? Barb and Kikki?”

“Barb Fillion and Kikki Matamoros. Barb's dropped off the map and Kikki Matamoros is in the ICU with a fractured skull. Same night. Would have been on your MDT.”

“I'd booked off. What happened to him?”

“Mugged in the Lady Grace parking lot as he was going off shift. Security camera missed it. So far no arrests.”

“Anybody trying to find Barb Fillion?”

“They've e-mailed and texted her and left messages on her voice mail, but she had ten days coming, and she's a camper, a trekker, so nobody official is looking. Yet anyway.”

“But
you're
thinking of it, aren't you, Nick?”

“Yeah. I am. Everybody who went down into that tunnel is…Jesus, Lacy.”

“What?”

“Lacy Steinert. She was there too. I haven't heard from her since.”

“I have. I saw her at the morgue after they pulled Dutrow out. Which was ugly, by the way.”

“When was that?”

“Late Friday night.”

“Nothing since then?”

“No.”

“Hold on a second.”

He pulled out his cell, hit a contacts number. Nick smoked a bit, looking tight.

So did Frank.

Tick. Tick.

“Lacy, this is Nick. Gimme a call as soon as you get this, Okay? No matter when. I really need you to check in ASAP. Okay?”

“Too late for her to be at the Probe, Nick.”

Mildred Pierce started to hiss, a low snaky sound, building in volume, shifting into a growl.

Barbetta kneeled down, looked into the bars. The cat was curled up tight against the back of the carrier, her eyes wild, her ears flat against her skull. When Barbetta got in her line of sight, she bared her fangs and hissed at him so intensely that he felt the heat of cat breath on his face. He stood up, shook his head. “Something's really bothering this animal.”

“You think?” said Nick absently. He was looking up the street. “You see a guy up there?”

“I did,” said Barbetta. “While ago. Big guy. Bulky and dogless.”

“He's gone now,” said Nick.

A pause. They looked at each other.

“Fuck me,” said Barbetta, reaching for his Beretta. Both men hit the deck. The shot exploding out of the dark blew the night to pieces, a huge shattering blast and a blossom of blue flame.

They both felt a big fat round sizzle over their heads, a humming burr and a hot wind on the back of their necks. The round smashed into the wall of the Carriage House garage at the bottom of the drive, spraying brick chips and shattering the mullioned windows. Someone—Beth or Helga or everybody—screamed.

Reed and Mavis came running up the lane just as another explosion came from the park—a different spot, off to the left; the shooter was moving—and a skittering hail of steel balls ricocheted across the driveway—low, a grazing shot. Mavis yelped and went down.

Reed had his service piece out, a Smith & Wesson .45 with an eleven-round mag. Barbetta had his Beretta 92 with fifteen rounds, and he and Reed poured concentrated semiauto fire on the general area in the park where the shots had come from. Nick's big Colt Python punctuated the fight with methodical single-shot blasts, Nick counting out his rounds—got to six, dumped the brass, heard it clanging and tinkling away, dumped in six from an autoloader, fired again. They heard Mavis on the radio calling it in.

“
Ten
78
, shots fired, shots fired—officer down, need immediate backup—three one four Beauregard Lane, require immediate ambulance and backup—
”

And the instant reply:
“Roger that, bravo six, rolling now!”

Reed and Barbetta stepped over Mavis, got down in front of her, shielding her. She was on the ground, holding her right ankle, blood running out between her fingers.

“Fuck that, I'm fine,” she said, “Move out! Go engage. Move it.”

Lemon was there, cold sober.

He got it in one, reached down, checked her wounds—multiple punctures from the shotgun pellets, felt like a broken ankle, but no arterial pumping—and then, without a word, pulled Mavis back down the drive and out of the line of fire.

Reed and Barbetta went left and right down to the curbline, putting fire on that parkette, trying to keep the shooter off balance. The sounds of the shots—the deep, heavy-cadenced
boom
of Nick's Colt, the sharper air-splitting crack of Reed's Smith .45, and Barbetta's lighter nine-mill—racketed around the streets and houses. Their muzzle flashes lit up the drive and the parked cars.

Nick put two final rounds out—one on either side of the spot where the shots had come from in case the target was doing a shoot and scoot. Now he was out and he had only one more autoloader. He pulled it out of his belt. More huge percussive booms erupted from the park, and blue fire flared out, blinding them.

Nick recognized it, twelve-gauge semiauto, a police duty weapon, a deer slug already in the chamber—a classic entry round, big as a lipstick tube; that was what had hummed by inches from his skull—and then six shells of double-ought steel balls in the magazine. Exactly the load-up sequence an entry team would use. Exactly the weapon taken from those two cops at Sable Basilisk.

Maris Yarvik. Had to be.

The shotgun kept pumping fire at them—one, two, three, four, deafening blasts that rocked around the street. What the hell were the neighbors doing?

He loaded up his last spare, slammed the cylinder shut, picked up his aim point again, steadied, fired…slow and calm…counting his rounds, aiming at the muzzle flashes across the street. Steel balls were in the air like killer bees, car windows shattering, ricochet rounds skittering off the walls of the townhouse, window glass blowing in.

Nick clicked empty, swore, ejected his brass; it scattered across the pavement—he was empty and out of the fight. Another blast and a thudding impact and Barbetta went down hard beside his squad car, crawling now, silent and grim, holding his left thigh, getting behind a tire rim.

Then a halt.

No more fire from the park.

Exactly
, thought Nick.

Seven shells, one deer slug and six double-ought. They triggered up, everybody checked their mags…a pause…

The silence came down heavy and sudden. Nick's ears were ringing.

“Reed, you hit?”

“No,” came the voice, slightly shaken, from a shadow by Lemon's Ford truck.

“Frank?”

“I got a burst in the thigh. I think it's not too bad.”

They watched him moving in the dim light from the streetlamp, doing something with his wound. Reed got into a low crouch, set himself, and dashed across the open space and came down on a knee beside Barbetta, pulled his hands away, checked the wound. Barbetta's upper thigh looked like a pit bull had been chewing on it, and in the middle of the shredded mess bright arterial blood was pumping out in rapid bursts.

“Shit, Frank,” he said, “that's femoral.”

Barbetta looked up at him, his face white and wet. He opened his vest, started fumbling at his equipment belt. Reed was ahead of him, found his plastic cuff case, ripped two out, linked them—his fingers a blur—and got the extended cuff around Barbetta's upper thigh. He cinched the cord cuff tight and the blood flow slowed down.

Barbetta looked up the drive. “Somebody move my cat, will you!”

Nick had forgotten about Mildred Pierce.

He jerked the carrier up, heard the cat snarling, an oddly wolflike sound; checked her briefly; got a faceful of cat hiss for his troubles—no blood visible; and shoved her out of the line of fire.

He ran down to the sidewalk, took a knee beside Reed and Barbetta.

Barbetta's face was white, his lips blue, his breathing shallow.

“Shock,” said Nick to Barbetta, Reed staring down at him.

“Where the fuck is the cavalry?” said Reed.

They heard footsteps, turned to see Lemon coming down the lane in a crouch. He looked at Barbetta's wound pumping out blood and his face went stony. “We gotta move him now,” he said in a flat calm voice. “Gotta get him to an ER. Gotta do it right away.”

They were on the curb right next to Barbetta's squad, staying out of the line of fire. Reed jerked the rear passenger door open, picked Barbetta up bodily and threw him inside. Lemon chuffed a breath, did a gut check, was about to move when Reed handed him Barbetta's service piece.

Lemon took it, got back to the tailgate of the cruiser, was about to go around into the open and try to get behind the wheel when the shooter opened up again, this time with a pistol, a fucking
big
pistol, muzzle flaring out of the dark. A huge round shattered the streetside passenger window.

Reed and Lemon fired back at the flash and Nick reached into the squad and jerked Barbetta's duty shotgun out of the rack between the two front seats, worked the slide as he pulled back out and moved over to the hood. He pumped two quick rounds into the park and Lemon, covered, started moving.

Nick put out two more rounds, feeling the big gun kick back and buck like a horse, saw a flash and a round hummed by his left ear, and then came the heavy thudding crack of the pistol. Nick fired again, thought he heard a cry, a shout, maybe pain, maybe he had hit the guy—

Lemon was at the door of the squad car. He was in the seat, his hands on the wheel, reaching for the keys, when another heavy blast from across the street carved a glancing furrow across Lemon's left shoulder. He bellowed in rage and pain.

Reed leaned in through the open passenger door, fired two rounds through the open driver's door, the muzzle flare lighting up Lemon's face, his black hair wet with blood spatter. He was conscious, he blinked, shook his head as if to clear it, spat out some blood, started the squad car with his right hand, looked across at Reed, his eyes wide, blood on his chin and cheekbones, slammed the driver's door.

“Get clear,” he said, working inside the pain.

Reed started to shake his head.

Another shot from across the street, not from the same place. The shooter was moving, but he sure as fuck wasn't going away. The round blew the front windshield out and Reed and Nick hit the sidewalk and Lemon put it in gear and punched the accelerator and the tires smoked and the engine roared. The squad jackrabbited out of the slot, fishtailed wildly—Lemon corrected—and it was gone into the night. They saw the brake lights flash on and heard the siren start to howl just as the squad car reached the cross street and squealed around the corner.

Reed and Nick scuttled back to the cover of Lemon's Ford F-150. They got there, backs against the tires. The shooter opened up on Lemon's truck, blowing out both left side tires. Now he was methodically shredding the Ford—the air was alive with glass bits flying and ricochets zinging around and the heavy chunk-chunk of rounds punching through metal. The truck's right-side window blew out and shards of safety glass showered down on them. Reed and Nick looked at each other.

“This what a war is like?” said Reed.

“Close enough,” said Nick, grinning.

“Waddya want to do?”

A pause—
the asshole must be reloading
—Nick figured it was the Kimber .45 from the Thorsson murders. This shooter wasn't going to quit.

“Fuck this,” said Nick.

“You think?” said Reed, changing out his magazine, a crazy light in his pale blue eyes.

“I do,” said Nick, reloading Barbetta's shotgun. “Let's go take him.”

“On three?”

They heard a pistol slide being racked—

“Fuck three,” said Nick and they went left and right around the truck—Nick with his shotgun braced, pumping out rounds and Reed on his feet, firing, both of them walking across the street, firing, their muzzle flashes strobing on the trees and the park and lighting up a big blue figure by the fountain, his gun arm extended.

Reed centered the pistol, fired. The shooter fired back, blue light sparkling. Two more flares from Nick's shotgun—he saw the blue man rock back—he'd hit him square in the chest…
fuck he's got Kevlar
. Another blast and Nick felt something slam into his ribs, like getting hit with a baseball bat, and down he went—hit the pavement, rolled onto his back. Heard Reed's pistol, three quick sharp rounds—a grunt from across the street, a heavy body thumping into earth…a long pause…He heard Reed say, slowly and clearly and in a hard flat voice like steel on flint, “Fuck you, asshole.”