“That’s right,” Nikky said. “You’re dying here today. And it’s me who’s going to kill you. I’m doing it for what you did to Taye, you lowlife rat bastard sonuvabitch.”
His gun hand jerked.
BLAM!
Inside the mostly empty cargo van, the single shot sounded like an explosion. Jerome’s head bounced back against the seat and then fell forward. His hand fell back into his lap, his gun thudding to the floor. Blood oozed out of the small hole above the bridge of his nose.
Nikky lowered her gun.
Nice shot . . . A part of Michelle — the cold, professional, evaluating part — admired that Nikky had hit Jerome in the perfect “right between the eyes” killing shot. Before she had time to reflect on the absurdity of her evaluating the efficiency of her lifelong friend taking a human life, she saw a small movement past Jerome.
Two, empty, open hands shot up from behind the driver’s seat.
“Show your muthafuckin face — now!” Michelle yelled.
Hands held high, a small man peeked out.
Nikky stepped around to the side door and started to open it . . .
“No! Wai—” Michelle began when—
BLAM!
—one shot from inside the van through the partly opened door. Another shooter was in back. The bullet whizzed past Nikky to crease low across the front of Michelle’s shirt. Spinning, gun up, she almost pulled the trigger as Nikky’s head moved past her sights.
A fresh shot of adrenaline hit her system, and Michelle felt time slow down. Already fast, things moved faster — a lot faster as her thinking and reflexes jammed into super-high gear. All in the same fleeting moment, she thought more, saw more, understood more.
Whipping her head toward the back of the van, Michelle noted the ongoing details of the situation. She also anticipated who’d move and where they were headed. As the man crouching in the back corner raised his gun, she felt, more than saw, Nikky spring into action.
But this was more than just adrenaline. Michelle had trained her mind to stay alert, assess and act on real needs, and discard distractions in crisis situations.
Her trainer had called it “unconscious competence” and as Nikky lunged into the van, Michelle remembered the whole conversation from several years ago.
“What the hell is unconscious competence?” demanded a once-determined and defiant young Michelle.
“It is when you are automatically competent,” her teacher replied.
“That doesn’t tell me shit.”
“Okay, little one. As a one-year-old child, you were not aware you could not drive a car.”
“That’s stupid. No baby knows they can’t drive a car.”
“Yes, they are unconsciously incompetent to drive.”
“So what?”
“When you were a seven-year-old child, you knew you could not drive.”
“Again, that’s stupid. No seven-year-old kid can drive.”
“Yes, all seven-year-old American children know about driving. They see many people drive cars or buses. They will also tell you they can’t drive. They are consciously incompetent.”
“Again, so what?”
“When you first learned to drive, everything was difficult. You had to carefully think about each action. Do you remember how you felt the first time you drove on a city street?”
“I was so nervous I might wreck my brother’s car. He would’ve killed me for a single scratch.”
“At that point, you could execute the function — basically do the thing — but you had to think of every step. You were consciously competent.”
“Yeah, driving took a lot of concentration. Like concentrating on many of the jujitsu moves you’ve shown me here.”
“Exactly. Now when you drive, you do many actions automatically. You are an unconsciously competent driver.”
Then her teacher moved slightly, and Michelle was again flat on her back, with the wind knocked out of her. “You may be unconsciously competent driving a car, but you are not competent in blocking most moves that will land you on your backside.”
The memory came as a single flash unit, barely taking any time, and Michelle mentally smiled at the recollection. Nikky had no idea how close she came to accidentally being shot.
Shooting as she dove, Nikky landed on her shoulder on the floor of the van —BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!— and plastered the inside back with bullets.
With blood pumping out of three holes in his chest, the man tried to raise his gun when —
BLAM!
— a fourth hole appeared in his chest. A line of holes stitched up from his stomach almost to his throat. He sagged against the back doors, his eyes losing focus as he died.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, please, Jesus, don’t shoot me!” the other man cried out, hands still high over his head.
Nikky flipped over to come face-to-face with him and, in a blur of movement, her 9mm came around. She pulled the trigger — Silence.
The slide on her pistol was in the locked-open position. She’d emptied her magazine into the now-dead man. Nikky and the other man froze, his eyes big as saucers and locked on Nikky’s face. Nikky held her empty gun on him.
“Michelle, this is Trevon and Gus. We’re coming up; we’re a couple of steps behind you. Don’t shoot us. Nod if you heard me.”
Without looking back, Michelle nodded once, then stepped over to where Nikky’s legs stuck out the van’s door. “Nikky, Nikky, this is Michelle,” she called out as she moved forward. She leaned in. With her gun pointed at the man, Michelle placed her free hand onto the small of Nikky’s back. “Nikky, I’m here. It’s okay now.”
“Okay, all right. All right, okay. Yeah, I’m good.” Nikky scooted back out of the van.
“Trevon, give me your gun,” Nikky said.
“What?” Trevon asked.
“Your gun. Give me your gun. I’m out of bullets.”
Gus stepped up. “Take this one. Give me yours.”
“No gun! No gun!” shouted the man still in the van. “I don’t got no gun! Don’t shoot! Please, Jesus, don’t shoot me. I’m Scooter. I’m from around here. You guys all know me. Please don’t shoot,” he begged, hands up as high as he could reach, tears running down his face. He sat on the floor in the corner behind the driver’s seat, eyes glued to Michelle’s gun that steadily threatened his existence.
Nikky took aim at Scooter. “Get your ass out here.”
Scooter quickly crabbed out. He sat on the edge of the door with his feet outside the van. His eyes darted around, panic written in everything about him. His focus jumped back and forth between the two women pointing guns at him.
“You’re talking, little man,” Michelle said. “You’re telling us everything about everything and about everybody. Hold anything back, she’ll take you out like these two here.” She nodded over to the two dead men slouched in the front seats. “This is your only chance; make it work.”
“Please don’t k-k-kill me. No gun. Don’t sh-shoot me.”
Trevon laid his hand on Michelle’s arm. “Make it fast. Cops’ll be here in minutes.” Then he and Gus stepped off to check the street.
“Who’s the dead guy in the back?” Michelle asked.
“That’s Terrance.”
“And this one?” Michelle pointed at the guy in the front passenger seat.
“Willie. They work the corner together.”
Scooter didn’t say which corner. Michelle didn’t care.
“Why are they with this asshole?” Michelle nodded toward Jerome.
“They was roofied by them hos that work for Sugar, so they was pissed off. They joined Jerome because he was shot by some women and they all wanted to get even.”
“What do you mean they were roofied?”
“You know — roofied. Those hos roofied them so they don’t know what’s going on.”
Michelle took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. “I know what roofied is, you stupid shit. Who did it?”
“Dontrice and Blondell, the hos who work over at the park sometimes.”
Michelle turned to Nikky, raising both eyebrows in question.
“Yeah, I know who they are,” Nikky said. “They’re on Sugar’s crew. You saw them at Betty’s with Sugar a couple times.”
“What? They’re on the Pussy Squad?”
“Yeah.”
“Dammit! Dammit to hell and back!” Michelle yelled. “That no good, backstabbing skank bitch. Sugar put them up to this.” She shoved the end of her gun against Scooter’s cheek, hitting his face with each word. “Where the fuck are they?”
Scooter’s eyes widened even more. “I-I-I don’— wait, wait, Blondell has a sister. She lives over at the Aloha Palms apartments. Honest, that’s all I know. I don’t know where they live or where they’re at right now.”
“We ought to kill this little shit,” Nikky said. “He’d just be another body in this mess.”
“Maybe. Before we decide, we need to know if he was involved with Jerome.” Michelle held her gun against Scooter’s forehead and jabbed him with it as she spoke. “Did you help these assholes beat up Lil Taye and JJ?”
“I didn’t hurt those women. I didn’t do nothing to them — honest! I didn’t know what they were doing until it was already done. I was driving, when Jerome said for me to pull over. He and Willie and Terrance jumped out and grabbed ‘em. It’s true. I didn’t know who they were or nothing. I couldn’t do anything but drive.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t touch either of them?” Nikky demanded.
“God’s truth. I didn’t. I swear!”
“You didn’t help pull them into the van?”
“Yes, I did that,” Scooter said, then he held up his hands. “But I didn’t hit nobody. I didn’t hurt them. I didn’t know they would beat them up.”
“All right, we’ll let him go. If he’s lying, he’s dying.” Michelle turned to Scooter. “If you’re lying, I’ll hunt you down and put a bullet in your eye.”
“You don’t think he’ll cause problems like Jerome did, do you?” Nikky asked.
“No, he won’t, because if he says anything around the hood or to the police, he’ll be dead.” Still staring at Scooter, Michelle said, “You clear on that?”
“I swear to God and everything I love, I won’t say nothing to nobody.”
“I can get to you like I got to these others, only easier and faster. You’ve already used up all of your chances. Anything from you, and it’s over. You don’t brag about being here. You don’t talk about who lived or who died. You don’t talk to your own mother about anything. If I get the smallest whiff you’ve been talking to anyone — and I mean anyone — about anything, you’re dead. Now you best run away before the police show up.”
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Trevon stepped up. “Are those guns registered to you?”
“No,” both women answered.
“Both of you, give them to me now. Go inside. Wash your hands, arms, and face. Even better, take a shower and wash your hair. Get fresh clothes from Betty. Do it now. Go!” He held his hands out for the guns.
Michelle saw the blood on Trevon’s hands. “Were you hit?”
“No, Gus was. It’s not much. No more questions. Give me your guns. Now.”
“Why? What’re you going to do?” Michelle asked.
“Just trust me. You were inside and didn’t see anything. You don’t know anything.”
The sirens were very close. Michelle and Nikky handed over their guns and ran toward Betty’s.
.
Twenty-Six: Police Action
TREVON FORCED HIMSELF to stop and scan the scene. The street was a mess. Nothing moved. The neighbors were still inside. People would soon pour out of their houses, though, most would wait for the police to show up. When the cruisers, lights flashing, filled the street, it was safe to go outside. Neighbors would check with each other to make sure stray bullets hadn’t claimed an innocent life.
The dead-still scene would be crowded with a new chaos.
Look at it with fresh eyes, like you’ve never been here before. Do it in layers.
Trevon took inventory of the normal scene. Except for the newer townhouse apartments on the left, the lower working class neighborhood of smaller single homes could be in any older residential section of the city. Yards were brown from the hot summer sun. Cheap cars with faded paint lined both sides of the street.
Next, look at what’s happened.
To his right, a new, large American car and his Lexis were riddled with bullet holes. An older pickup in front of the Lexus was left untouched. On his right, the parking lane was open from the corner up to a white van about forty feet away. Both the van and a dark sedan parked behind it were full of bullet holes.
The smell of gunpowder is still strong, but there’s no smoke.
Three visible bodies — D’andre in the middle of the street; some White guy he’d never seen before in the gutter; and one of D’andre’s guys on the grass, close to where Gus waited. Three more bodies lay in the van, but they couldn’t be seen from where he stood.
Gus sat on the ground, leaning against the tree. Their guns, mags out, slides back, lay in a pile at his feet.
I shot from behind my car. Gus mostly shot from the tree. Michelle shot a lot from up . . . Fuck! Where’s her brass?
Only a few seconds had passed since Michelle and Nikky ran into Miss Betty’s house and sirens were getting close. No time to go inside and ask questions.
Trevon sprinted to the shrubs below the balcony where Michelle had taken so many shots, and frantically searched the area.
“She already got them!” Gus yelled. “Come on, the cops are almost here!”
Trevon ran over and threw himself down next to Gus when the first two police cars, tires squealing, blasted around the corner. “What? She already got the shells?”
“The little one ran in the house, and other one did this crazy thing: she pulled off her shirt and started picking up something. Then she yelled, asking me where her gun was. When I showed her I had it, she threw the casings over here like they’d ejected out of my gun. That’s them, scattered in the grass mixed with mine.”
“Impressive,” Trevon said.
“I thought so,” Gus replied.
“Prints?” Trevon asked.
“Guns, clips, and bullets, all wiped clean.”
From the other end of the street, two more police cars screeched in, sirens blaring, lights flashing. An unmarked police LTD, red gumball light flashing on the dash, jammed up behind the first two cruisers. From his spot by the tree, Trevon had a clear line of sight to the unmarked LTD.
At least two more cruisers, sirens screaming, roared up behind the van. Though he couldn’t see it, Trevon assumed the more police crowded into the other end of the block.
Uniformed police threw doors open, and crouched behind them with guns out, scanning the area.
A plainclothes cop slid out of the unmarked car, using the door for cover. With his gun aimed at Gus and Trevon, he made eye contact. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he said.
They nodded.
Several more police cars showed up.
More uniformed officers, guns out, cautiously left the protection of their cars, accusing every shadow of being a potential threat, as they flowed up and around the four shot-up vehicles.
“Clear!” an officer yelled, moving away from the American sedan.
“Clear!” a different officer yelled, stepping away from the shot-up Lexus parked in front of the American sedan.
“Clear!” another officer yelled from the black sedan behind the van.
“This one’s dead!” called an officer, standing by the man in the gutter.
“This one, too!” An officer rose to his feet next to the man lying in the middle of the street.
“There are people in the van! They all look dead!” a different officer yelled.
“Clear!” an officer shouted from the van
.
“This one is dead!” announced yet another officer, who stood next to the man lying in the front yard.
Four uniforms, two to either side, with guns drawn and pointing at Trevon and Gus, side-stepped in a semicircle about fifteen feet away in front of them.
“Don’t move!” a cop shouted, sounding foolishly loud.
“Relax, we’re not going anywhere,” Trevon said.
“Shut up! Hands up over your heads!” the same cop yelled.
Trevon raised his hands, while Gus lifted one. The other remained on his lap.
“Raise your other hand, asshole!”
“Hey, Dickless Tracy, don’t continue to prove you’re a moron,” said Trevon. “You can see he’s been shot and can’t raise his arm. Now calm the fuck down, before one of you idiots does something stupid.”
The cop in the suit came up behind the uniformed officer who’d been yelling at them. “I got this, Gerry.”
Gerry, the loud cop, nodded, but didn’t relax or lower his gun. The other three cops stayed equally as vigilant.
Plainclothes asked Gus and Trevon, “Those your only weapons?”
“Yeah,” both men answered.
“Are you shot?”
“I’m not, he is,” Trevon said. “He needs medical attention.”
“Can you stand?” Plainclothes asked Gus.
“Yeah.”
“You’ll go first, but not yet.” He nodded to Trevon. “You. Put your hands on your head, lace your fingers. Stay very still when your buddy gets up. Got that?”
Trevon nodded and did as instructed.
“Keep your hands where I can see them” —Plainclothes nodded to Gus— “and slowly get up, and step away from the tree.”
Cradling his injured arm, Gus struggled to his feet and stepped a few paces away from the tree, where he was vigorously frisked.
More patrol cars arrived, along with two ambulances.
“He’s clean,” an officer said.
“Get him on a gurney. Cuff him to it. Read him his rights, ride with him and don’t let him talk to anyone.”
Turning back to Trevon, Plainclothes said, “You’re next. What’s your name?”
Hard Betrayal (Michelle Angelique Avenging Angel Series 2) Page 15