The Rock 'N Roll Detective's Greatest Hits - a Spike Berenger Anthology (36 page)

“Do tell!”

“Paul Daniel
Patton
.”

Berenger stopped in his tracks. “Get out of town!”

“I kid you not. Paul Daniel Patton is Al Patton’s big brother.”

Of course. The two bald heads. They
did
resemble each other.

“Spike? You there?”

“I’m here, Tommy. I just thought of something.”

“What?”

“If Ron Black, AKA Paul Daniel Patton, has disappeared, then he could just be hiding out somewhere. He shot Suzanne because he realized she was about to figure out who he was. Damn, I’ll bet the farm that
he’s
the guy who was shooting at
me
! He was impersonating a Jimmy and had the means to do it because of the connection between the Jimmys and the Messengers. That means he’s possibly bumping off anyone who might know things about him or know what he’s done. Tommy, now I think I know why he killed Flame. And I know why he killed Carol, too.”

“And?”

“Joshua Duncan has to be next,” Berenger said. “I think the kid’s in a shitload of danger.”

J
oshua Duncan left his Corporate Law class early and decided to cut the rest. The events of the past few days had left him weakened and upset. With his father’s death, followed within a month by his mother’s, he simply didn’t know how to handle himself. He couldn’t concentrate on his schoolwork and had no desire to be in public.

It had all gone so terribly wrong. None of it was supposed to happen the way it did. They had lied to him and used him. And things just kept getting worse. Now with that private detective’s partner being shot and all, the heat was surely going to come down hard and fast.

Duncan considered leaving the city. But where would he go? He knew no one outside of New York. And wouldn’t it seem suspicious if he left? No, he had to stick it out. So far, he was safe. He had to carry on with his normal life, as depressing as that was. He couldn’t do anything that might attract unnecessary attention.

Damn it to hell
, he thought. Why did he have to be the son of a famous rock star?

Duncan walked down West End Avenue and entered his 14-story building between 103
^rd
and 104
^th
Street. Freddie, the doorman, gave him a smile and a wave. Duncan often wondered why the building management bothered to employ a doorman. He was supposedly there for security purposes but all the guy ever did was sit and read magazines. Duncan didn’t think Freddie could stop a criminal even if he was armed, which he wasn’t.

The elevator reached the 12th floor and Duncan got off. He walked down the hall past the stairwell to his apartment, fumbled with his keys, and unlocked the door. If he had been quick enough, he might have noticed the movement behind him as he swung open the door. Perhaps he could have done something to prevent the attack, even though Joshua Duncan was ill prepared to handle a self-defense situation.

Ron Black body-slammed Duncan, knocking the young man into his apartment and onto the wood floor. Black followed quickly, slammed the door shut behind him, and turned the dead bolt.

“What the—?” Duncan stammered. “Hey, that hurt!” He rubbed his arm and then stared up at the bald man in fright. Black’s face was contorted as if he was possessed by some kind of demon. His eyes were red and he was practically frothing at the mouth.

“I’m closing loose ends,” Black said breathlessly. “Then I’m getting the hell out of Manhattan. Do you know where my brother is?”

“Your brother?”

“My
brother
! Patton! Al Patton!”

“Al Patton is your
brother
?” Duncan slowly crawled backward away from the manic killer.

“Yes, he’s my fucking brother. Where is he?”

“I… I don’t know! I haven’t seen him since the other day!”

“His people at his office say he’s on vacation. That’s bullshit. He’s hiding somewhere in the city. I know it.”

“I don’t know where he is! Honest!”

Black slammed a fist into the wall, cracking the plaster. He stood, panting, staring at Duncan with menace.

“Things have gotten too hot for me and it’s all yours and Al’s fault,” he said.

“What do you mean? What did we do?” Duncan was now backed against the wall of the apartment foyer. He had no other place to retreat.

Black reached behind his back and drew a Colt Cobra .38 revolver. He aimed it at Duncan, causing the young man to scream.

“No! Please don’t!” Duncan cowered, covering his head with his arms as he started to sob uncontrollably.

“Shut up, you little shit!” Black said.

The door buzzer sounded. Black froze.

“Joshua?” The voice came from the other side of the locked front door. “Are you in there?” The buzzer rang again, followed by loud knocking.

Black crouched beside Duncan and whispered, “If you make a sound I’ll blow your head off.” He then went to the door and looked through the peephole.

It was Berenger, the PI.

“Joshua, open up! It’s Spike Berenger! The doorman said he saw you come up.” More knocking.

Black moved to Duncan and pulled him to his feet. “I want you to answer him, tell him that you’re sick, and for him to go away.” He stuck the pistol’s barrel in the back of Duncan’s neck and shoved him toward the door.

Sweat poured off Duncan’s head as he nodded in compliance. Trembling, he faced the door and said, “Mister… Mister Berenger?”

“Joshua! Are you all right?”

Perhaps it was the disparity of Duncan’s situation that motivated him to take the risk he did. Or maybe it was the lifelong fatalism that he had always possessed and never attempted to combat. Whatever it was, the young man steeled his nerve and unexpectedly shouted.

“Black is here, he’s got a gun!”

Simultaneously, Duncan slammed his elbow into Black’s chest and did his best to shove the man away. He then ran toward the back of the apartment—if he could just make it to the bedroom, he could lock the door and go down the fire escape.

Black’s Colt fired twice.

Duncan’s body propelled forward through the arch dividing the foyer from the living room. He slid across the smooth wooden floor, two slugs in his back.

Out in the hallway, Berenger heard the shots, drew his S&W Bodyguard AirWeight, released the safety, and fired at the doorknob. The lock mechanism blew away and Berenger kicked in the door. He crouched in a firing position, arms stretched forward and both hands on the gun.

The foyer was empty.

He moved quickly to the arch, peered into the living room, and saw Joshua Duncan lying in a puddle of his blood. No one else was in the room. Berenger skirted quickly across the space to the back hall, taking the necessary precautions to look first and move second. The hallway and bathroom were empty. The bedroom door was closed.

Berenger kicked it open and crouched with the gun in front of him.

The room was empty. The large window by the bed was open and the white drapes blew in the breeze.

Black had gone down the fire escape.

Berenger looked out the window and didn’t see the man. He moved back into the living room, stooped beside Duncan, and felt his pulse.

“Did… did… you get him?” Duncan rasped.

“Hush, Joshua. I’m calling for an ambulance.”

Berenger flipped open his cell phone and dialed 911. When the dispatcher answered, he relayed the details and address of the shooting.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes, Josh. Just hold on.” Berenger examined the two wounds. They looked bad. One had surely punctured a lung and there was no telling what damage the second one did. It was near the center of the young man’s back.

“Go…” Duncan whispered.

“What?”

“Go get him.”

“I shouldn’t leave you.”

“Go get him. He killed my parents. Don’t let him… get away.”

Berenger frowned. Duncan was right. If the young man was going to live or die there was nothing Berenger could do to influence Duncan’s pendulum of fate.

“Hang on, Joshua. I’m going after him,” he said.

Berenger ran to the bedroom and climbed out onto the fire escape.

B
erenger stood on the platform and looked down.

How come he couldn’t see Black
? It was twelve flights to the ground. There was no way the killer could have made it down so quickly.

As if in answer to Berenger’s thoughts, a gunshot thundered above him and the bullet struck the metal bars on the fire escape with a loud CLANG. Berenger threw himself back to the side of the building and remained flat. It was times like this when he wished he could get rid of some of the gut that protruded over his belt buckle.

He raised his head and squinted into the sun, which was directly overhead. It was impossible to focus on anything but it was obvious that Black had climbed
up
rather than down the fire escape.

Fine
, Berenger thought. If a chase was what the guy wanted, then that’s what it would be. He holstered the S&W and boldly took hold of the ladder rungs. Berenger climbed halfway to the fourteenth floor—there was no thirteenth—when another shot zipped past his head. He hugged the ladder, waited a moment and then continued his ascent.

“Give it up, Black!” he shouted. “Or is it Patton? We know who you are now!”

Berenger saw the killer quickly peer over the edge of the roof and then vanish. He continued to climb—the fire escape ladder reached all the way to the edge of the roof. Berenger carefully looked over the ledge and saw nothing but a small maintenance structure that was also the entrance to the stairwell running through the center of the building. It stood about thirty feet away.

He climbed over and crouched, the S&W once again snug in his hands.

Another shot came from behind the structure. Berenger leaped sideways and fired two shots. Another round chipped off pieces of brick inches above his head. Reflexively, Berenger catapulted over the roof edge and back to the fire escape platform—it was safer there.

He attempted to climb the ladder, raise his gun, and shoot again, but Black had managed to reload and fire first. Berenger felt that one’s heat as it missed his left cheek by an inch. He didn’t stop his momentum, though. Berenger quickly reached over the ledge, took a bead at the shape behind the maintenance structure, and squeezed the trigger. Bits of the building flew like shrapnel.

Black suddenly appeared in the open. He fired twice as he moved to the stairwell door. Berenger was forced to duck for cover; by the time he could raise his head, Black had disappeared inside the structure.

Berenger climbed over the ledge once more and ran after Black at full speed. He flattened his back against the wall next to the steel door and then yanked it open. He swung around with gun ready but the landing was empty. Berenger leaned over the rail and heard running steps descending through the building. There was only one thing to do. Berenger climbed on top of the rail and jumped to the 14
^th
floor landing below him. His military training had taught him to land flat-footed with knees bent so that his hefty weight wouldn’t cause him to lose his balance or, even worse, break his legs. With one floor down and twelve to go, Berenger once again climbed onto the rail and jumped to the landing below.

Now Black’s steps were louder. Berenger leaned over the rail and glimpsed the man’s arm and leg as the killer ran down the stairs. Berenger pointed the S&W at the rail, slightly ahead of his prey, and squeezed the trigger. The rail exploded into bits as the gunshot echoed robustly in the stairwell. Black, enraged, stopped and looked upward through the gap between flights and aimed his Colt. Berenger pulled back as two shots tore into the wooden rail in front of him.

The chase resumed. Berenger took the stairs two at a time and passed a few floors when he finally heard the sirens outside.