At the right extreme of his peripheral vision, he spots another blur of black. A third man, headed for the door, carrying something, maybe a rifle, & the door opens & slams shut…
A vicious kick to the small of his back. Two rabbit punches, swift, simultaneous, expertly aimed, striking the base of his nape, two more quick blows, fist edges slamming into his kidneys, doubling him, dropping him to his knees for a moment…
Half real.
Half ploy.
Flashing on a split-second strategy.
Frank’s hand gropes into his right coat pocket.
He clenches the hefty six-inch cylinder in his fist. Whips it out, blitz-flicking his thick wrist, sleek chromed shafts telescoping, slithering out with a metallic whisper & a clink, as 10 inches of cool tactical steel snap-lock into fixed position, extending his reach beyond the baton’s hilt…
He hears the foot swishing through the air behind him, another killer kick aimed smack at his back.
He thrusts himself left, dodging, whirling, ASP swinging, striking rattler-nasty, impacting bone on his assailant’s stationary ankle, raising a howl of sharp, shattering agony, the second strike smashing knob-first into his kneecap, the twin blows dropping the blackclad man like a load of bricks, the third slamming direct to his solar plexus in midfall…
Frank goes over the edge.
Losing it.
Bigtime.
Battering the downed man about the face & body, using the ASP as it was never intended, smashing it again & again into his skull, inflicting punishment like some Salvadoran inquisitor or a Brazilian Neo-Nazi Death Squad assassin coercing a confession & copping-out co-conspirators before he segues to straight snuff…
Pain lances through his right forearm. A heavy endtable lamp crashes into tensed flesh. Pottery frags. His right hand goes numb. The ASP slithers from his grasp, clattering against the wall, chipping shards of paint & plaster.
The burglar standing above him must be in a world of hurt, as well. His black ski mask is damp with something dark, the knitted fabric sticking to his skin, & bright blood is smeared & dripping from the mouth slit.
The man makes a move with his right, reaching for the gap of his jacket, gunhand obviously heading for a hidden holster…
Frank is packing his .44 Mag.
But his own gunhand is still all pins & needles, novocaine numb, & he’s afraid a showdown may prove a blowdown with him the sitting duck…
He launches himself like a flying tackle for the nearest wall plaque, grabbing it with his uninjured left, ripping it free, swinging, slamming the heavy board & its half-dozen mounted strands of rusty barbed wire deadbang against his opponent’s skull, listening to the sick, splintering crunch of impact, grabbing the next display in line, tearing it loose, wielding it left-handed, also, knotted knuckles white with exertion, scars jagged slashes of even whiter white, as he swings, smashing wood & rusted iron spikes into the wrist that drags out the unaimed .38, the skell waving it wildly as he grips his wire-impaled cranium, clawing at the twisted strands stuck deep into his forehead’s flesh…
Frank hears a rustling of carpet behind him.
Starts to turn.
Hears the muffled pop & wwwhooosssh of a discharging weapon. His mind tagging it as a low-velocity CO2 load in that extended second even as he feels the searing pain of something skewering his left shoulder, entering through the back of his jacket, lodging deep within the muscle… He starts to take a couple of steps forward. Staggers. Falling…
Falling into darkness…
[ 267 ]
Frank shakes his head, marveling at the immensity of the pain contained within his brain, the convulsive throbbing that threatens to explode his skull into flying shrapnel at any second, or to implode, sucking everything within the room into the vast blackhole of his collapsed cerebrum. Part steel-toed-boot-to-head interface. Part hangover. Part drug-ugly morning-after downer…
He does a mental quickscan, accessing & assessing the extent of damage suffered.
The backs of his eyeballs feel severely thumb-gouged.
His skull feels like an eggshell dropped out a 15th-story window. On to solid cement.
A sharp, piercing pain in his left shoulder. Like somebody used him for a dart board. His left hand gropes to locate its source. They did… Trank dart… He tugs it loose & tosses it.
His right forearm courses with pain, swollen & bruised…if he’s lucky…
Ditto for his lower back.
Frank’s eyelids flutter open. The room looks like it was hit by a cyclone. & that’s the good news…
The bad news is, there are two dead bodies lying near him on the blood-soaked carpet, hands bound behind their backs with hanks of common white clothesline.
No need to check for pulses. No. Not enough left of either one’s head to have to ponder on the possibilities. The tops of their skulls blown right off. Shot point blank. Brains sprayed all over the floor. His .44 Magnum lying just inches from his fingertips. Missing two Teflon-coateds on closer examination. One of the sofa cushions shot all to shit, two ragged holes blasted through it, ringed with powder burns.
Those .44 loads didn’t leave much face to look at, but he can piece together their mouths were sealed with strips of silver duct tape. His hand digs into the nearest stiff’s hip pocket for a wallet & ID. Nada. He pats him down. Feels the telltale bulge in his inside breast pocket. Pops it out & takes a peek. It’s one of those with the little plastic window. Behind it is a brass badge. & the card marked “CHICAGO D.E.A..” D.O.A. Bad news. Real bad. A major bummer.
He does a rundown on the other daisy-pusher.
Same story.
Frank freaks. Two dead C.P.D. Narcotics cops. Snuffed execution style. In his fucking living room…
He just knows the Forensics boys would nitrate-test him positive for recent firing of the .44, circumstantial indication his was the trigger finger…
Instant Panic City. Sure shot for a one-way ticket to Death Row.
& that knot in his gut is never wrong, he can hear them—
Ghosts scratching from inside the walls, ghosts rapping on the door, those slope bastards impersonating the police, calling, “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD! PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS, PSYCHO, OR WE’LL SWAT YOU LIKE A GODDAMN FLY, COP KILLER!” but on the wavelengths of the subliminal he can hear them whispering in that ugly sing-song gook language…
The war dead are massing just out of sight…
The flies are buzzing, swarming thicker ever thicker ’til they cloud the sky…
& he knows,, yeah he fuckin’ knows, in this instance, Retreat is not Dishonor… He will break on through to the other side… beyond enemy lines… & he will go LRRP & enlist a cutthroat crew of badass Montagnard mercs & he will take no fuckin’ prisoners…
[ 268 ]
Hawkes makes a quick trip to the john. Opens the washbasin’s cabinet. Fumbles through spare rolls of white toilet paper, letting them tumble everywhichway. Locates the pale tan pack of ScotTissue 1000s, rips off the resealed wrapper, unpeeling a horse-choker flash roll of used, unsequenced twenties, wrapped around the cardboard core & taped. He stuffs them in the empty shaving kit waiting such emergency status.
He empties his dresser drawer of the reserve stock of .44 Teflon-coateds & hollowheads & tosses them in his shaving kit. He digs out the High Standard Sentinel Mark III revolver, the .22 Long Rifle nine-shot with its two-inch barrel, cinching the twin straps of this petite “lady’s pistol’s” ankle holster into place as backup firepower, just above his boottop, hidden by his left pant leg. Making a lethal match for the survival knife & scabbard strapped to his right.
Suddenly he remembers the recently acquired H&K G11.
But the gun & ammo supply are gone.
[ 269 ]
At 11:47 a.m., an anonymous call reporting a possible shooting is phoned in to 911, leading CPD officers to Hawkes’ apartment.
The living room looks like a brawl took place there. Furniture is smashed or ov
erturned. The walls & carpet are soaked & splattered with human blood. They find the cold corpses of two veteran narcotics cops, bound with common white clothesline & apparently gagged with duct tape, slain execution-style, each shot once through the head at pointblank range with a large-caliber handgun.
A thorough search uncovers a small stash of LSD & amphetamines, polybagged & taped inside a wall clock.
An APB goes out for ex-FBI Special Agent Warren Franklin Hawkes, described as “armed & extremely dangerous.”
[ 270 ]
Frank is less than 35 miles away, sitting on the King-size bed in the swankiest hotel he could find in Gary, Indiana, when his 16-channel Bearcat Scanner picks up the all-points alert. The scanner is a portable, slightly cheaper version of the model console-mounted in his Vette.
Whoever whacked those cops & set me up has some heavy connections, he thinks. & they wanted to give me room to run, or they’dve made the informant call considerably earlier…
& why the Hell didn’t they hear my cannon roarin’…? Unless they turned up the TV or the stereo, & muffled the shots somehow…
Don’t make silencers for revolvers, they just don’t work…
He reaches inside his coat & pulls out the Magnum, giving the barrel a close inspection—around the tip feels gummy to the touch, & remnants of adhesive are barely visible…
Yeah. But, then again, they might’ve used a couple of two-liter plastic pop bottle disposables taped to the barrel, maybe packed with foam rubber or baffling to help disperse the gases evacuated at the muzzle—the gangbangers sometimes use them— & with the cushion placed in front of the suppressor, & maybe my pillow held over the gun, muffling the cylinder’s blowout… Shit! I should’ve checked it out…
Whoever masterminded this fuckin’ frame-up had plenty of time to work all this shit out… Unlike yours truly…
Hawkes is strictly wingin’ it, as best as he can.
Slow the cops with the jurisdictional limitations posed by crossing over state lines.
Cruise ’til you find the first open lemon heaven, BARGAIN EDDIE’S USED CARS. Park just around the corner. Pick out a demolition special. Tell the smilin’ sleazoid in the plaid pants & Hawaiian shirt you’re shoppin’ for a fix-up transportation special for your kid who just scored a license. Jew him down just enough to lend credibility, but not enough for him to remember you as a hardball asshole. Flash that fake ID you use for undercover gigs.
Let him sign over the pink slip for a carefully counted stack of twenties nursed out of your “almost-emptied” wallet.
Drive that oil-burnin’ Dodge Dart into the nearest deserted alley. Clean out the glovebox. Nothing to link it to BARGAIN EDDIE’S or previous private owners.
Go back & get the Vette.
Strip the Indiana plates from the bomb & swap them with those Land of Lincolns. Stash them in the Stingray’s trunk.
Not bad for spur of the moment. Not bad at all.
Be sure to break known behavior patterns. No Holiday Inns or Travel Lodges this trip. No way. Hole up in the fanciest joint you can find. Kick back & keep low…
& all I’m doin’s tryin’ to buy a little time, set up a meet with my own private legal eagle, Hal Meyers, keep from gettin’ myself blown away as some psycho cop killer, right…?
Frank mosies down to the payphone in the lobby. Drops in some change & tries to reach the shyster’s home number.
No dice. Sonafabitch must be off fishin’. Have to try again, later…
[ 271 ]
This is the tenth ring of his thirteenth or fourteenth try. Frank looks down at his Rolex: 11:27 p.m. He’s been trying Hal Meyers all afternoon & evening. All night, goddamn it. Last try. If he doesn’t answer now… Another ring. One more for the road. Zero.
He starts to drop the phone into its chrome cradle.
“Hullo. Hullo. Goddamn these crank calls,” a faint voice edged with weariness emanates from the receiver.
“HAL?” Frank asks.
“Yeah. It’s Hawkes, all right. Guess you’ve heard the news…?”
He pauses, listening.
“Fuck no! I didn’t do it. No friggin’ way, Hal. I come home last night from a little bar-hoppin’, & I bust in on three…no there must have been four of ’em, countin’ whoever nailed me with th’ goddamn trank dart…”
Another pause.
“Yeah. You heard right. KO’d me with a tranquilizer dart. I was out like a light ’til almost 7:00 a.m.…
“That’s when whoever whacked the narcs. DRUGS? Hell no, Hal! Well, maybe a bottle of Noctecs, but they’re prescription…”
“LSD? Amphetamines? Christ, no… It’s a goddamn FRAME, that’s what it is… Who? I don’t fuckin’ know… Yeah. PLENTY…
Frank listens.
“In the mornin’? How the Hell am I supposed to sleep? OK. OK. Yeah. I hear y’, Hal. Gotta do this right. Slide in smooth & easy. Or I’m liable to end up in the same condition…
“You grease th’ wheels. Get me a clean surrender… OK. …Yeah. I’m… No? No. Of course. They may have you bugged. If I wasn’t so fuckin’ fried, I’d have thought of that…
“Can’t have done a trace yet. See y’ t’morrow, Hal, OK.?
“Yeah. Trust me—”
[ 272 ]
Monday morning. School Bus 1187 is a sunny slab of yellow among the confetti dots of eastbound traffic streaming along Archer Avenue, heading through the Forest Preserve below the southeasternmost tip of Du Page County.
Perhaps a 100 yards or so to the north, the commuter rail runs almost parallel, the highway belling away slightly southward before the 95th Street terminus, then curving in again as it nears the Willow Springs On Line Rail Station. The Des Plaines River & the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal wend along the Cook/Du Page County boundary about a quarter mile beyond, crisscrossing from the Cook side over into Du Page, then back. Directly to the east, on the Du Page side of the Des Plaines, lies another Preserve, this housing the Argonne National Laboratory of the U.S. AEC & its powerful proton synchrotron, operated by Argonne Universities Association & the U of C, an R&D facility “exploring the peaceful uses of atomic energy.”
But it could be White-fucking-Sands or Bikini Atoll for all the didleysquat the surrounding geography means to Driver Dave J. Hunter. He shifts uneasily in his seat. Goddamn! The day hasn’t even STARTED yet, & already his piles are killing him… & the load of kids in back are roughhousing & raising Cain…
He glances down at his watch: 7:56. A couple of minutes ahead of schedule. Christ! Maybe the week won’t turn out all that bad…? Shit! Kids’ll be kids, he wasn’t no saint when he was just another snot-nosed yardape back in grade school, & there’s always soothing TUCKS MEDICATED PADS & PREPARATION H…
Then he glances up at the sun visor, & the wad of the weekend’s losing lottery tickets, & he knows his life will always amount to the brown-smeared end of a dump-dipstick…
“If” & “only.” Two biggest words in the English Dictionary—
If only Driver Dave had glanced slightly to his right, instead, up at the ridgeline of the road-cut embankment among the shrubs & flame-leafed oaks, then he might have spotted the sudden glint of sunlight glancing off ground-&-polished glass…
MAYBE. A BIG MAYBE. But Driver Dave did his time for Old Glory over in Vietnam. & just maybe, he might’ve spotted that split-second not-so-distant early warning as the tall, black-hooded sniper swings the crosshairs of his scope into place…
…& time begins to freeze & roll in SloMo…
…Gloved forefinger squeezing the trigger ever so gently…
…A single, rasping report echoes out across the pavement as a three-round burst erupts from the barrel—the first shot firing, the mechanism begins its recoil, the auto device now operating the bolt to load & refire while the weapon is still moving backward on the recoil stroke, the second adding momentum to the rearward motion, the third shot chambers, fires, & completes the 2.5-inch stroke back to battery before the gunman’s shoulder senses the
recoil, before barrel drifts off aim, fading left…
Squeezing again & again & again…
Loosing three more three-round bursts…
Driver Dave starts to scream, “SSSHHHIII—” as both front tires blow & the wheel whips out of control & the school bus jackknifes & he hits the brakes & the bus teeters on one tire & a rim sparking & shrieking & grinding metal shavings like a rain of tiny shooting stars & somehow he manages to wrestle the jerking, convulsing, jittering wheel back into some semblance of control as rearend rubber smokes off the four back tires & they sideswipe at least a dozen cars & the shrill scream of terrified tykes inside merges with the wail of the tortured metal & the “TTT” is half-formed on his lips as the next bursts rip through the windshield in a chaos of exploding glass, two of the 4.7-mm slugs slamming into his skull, smashing his right mandible & cheekbone, the impact yanking him back in his seatbelt, & despite the searing pain he fights the runaway bus to a fishtailing stop amid the roiling smoke of stripped treads & burnt-out brakelines & popping safety glass as minute fragments scatter like hail, & he tries to yell, “DOWN! KEEP DOWN! HIT THE FLOORBOARDS, KIDS!” but blood just sprays & bubbles from his ruined mouth, & then three more shots hit him in the head & this time two-out-of-three are lethal hits…
The blackclad sniper stands atop the ridge, casually exposed, a hulking shadow limned against the rising blaze of sun, as he empties his first 50 rounds, strafing both front tires & the front & right side windows in a barrage of sudden, numbing, 4.7-mm terror…
Duet for the Devil Page 44