Wet Work: The Definitive Edition

by Philip Nutman

  It took a couple of seconds to register that it was Sandy. That snapped Nick awake quicker than a cold shower.

  “Yes, hon,” he mumbled, reaching for the alarm clock.

  “Didn’t you get my message? I waited up half the night for you to call.”

  “What?”

  The clock showed 7.05. Shit, the alarm should have gone off twenty minutes ago. He must have forgotten to set it.

  “On the machine.”

  “No.” He paused. “Sorry. I got in late last night, went straight to bed.”

  What time did I get in last night? He couldn’t remember. Well after midnight.

  Then it all came back to him in a vertiginous rush: stopping at the diner on his way back from Billy’s, stuffing down a burger and puking when he got in. He’d collapsed exhausted on the bed and saw now that he was fully clothed.

  “You okay?”

  Man, I drank way too much.

  (you’ve got a problem)

  “Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Just overslept.”

  He swung his body upright, his foot kicking over a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels spilling liquor on the carpet.

  Shit! His head throbbed like someone was pounding out a drum solo on his skull.

  “How are you doing? How’s Mom?” he managed, righting the bottle and trying not to groan.

  Sandy paused.

  “She’s not doing well,” she finally said. “The doctors don’t think she’s going to make it through the end of the week.”

  Did I drink that? He didn’t remember hitting the Jack when he came in. God, he couldn’t remember much at all.

  “Nick?”

  He realized he’d tuned her out.

  “Sorry, hon. I didn’t get all that. The line’s bad,” he lied.

  “I said, she’s not going to make it past the weekend.” Her voice trembled, close to tears.

  Looking at the bottle and the stain on the rug made him feel guilty. “Oh, hon…”

  He couldn’t think what to say and the line hummed as Sandy waited for him to continue. “Sweetheart, I…” Damn it! Say something. Let her know you care. His mouth felt like a buzzard had crapped in it, his tongue thick and sticky.

  “Where were you?”

  “Went out to dinner with Tranksen and his wife. Celebrated our first day on the job,” he replied, trying to think fast.

  “Are you hung over?” Her voice had a suspicious edge to it.

  “No. No, not at all. Just tired.”

  (Liar!)

  “We just had a quiet meal. Yesterday was tough.”

  Could he tell her what had happened? No, not now. Later, once she was over her own trauma. It’d freak her out. Well, honey, I shot a man, stopped him from blowing off his face. Should have seen what he did to those kids though.

  “What happened?” The concern was back.

  “I…I saw some stuff… Hon, it’s not important, you don’t need to know.”

  “Nick, what’s wrong? You don’t sound good.”

  “I’m okay, really,” he lied again. His head throbbed like a demolition derby was slamming around inside. “I was sick last night. The hamburger I had must have been off.”

  Sandy was silent. She doesn’t believe me, she knows I went out and got ripped.

  “Look, I’m okay, really. Tell me about Mom.”

  “She looks so frail, so…so lost.” Sandy’s voice trembled.

  Nick grimaced as he stood up. Some comfort you are, he thought, some hero. Your wife calls and you lie your ass off.

  “I wish I could be there,” he said as he glanced at himself in the mirror. He looked like shit. His hair was a mess and his eyes bloodshot.

  “Yes.”

  He heard her stifle a sob.

  Man, I can’t deal with this.

  “Look, I’d love to talk, Hon, but I gotta go or I’ll be late.”

  “I know.”

  Another pause, then: “I love you.”

  “And you. Call you later. Take care.”

  “Bye,” she said and he hung up.

  Nick sat down on the bed. What a great start to the day. A hangover, Jack Daniels staining the rug, lying to Sandy. And he was late.

  It was 7:11 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. And it sucked.

  NEW YORK, BETH ISRAEL MEDICAL CENTER.

  9:57 A.M.

  Liz found a parking space on East 17th Street, two blocks from the hospital. The temperature had already climbed to the upper 70s, and by the time they reached First Avenue, both she and Sandy were sweating.

  Three police cars and an ambulance were parked in front of the main entrance, and two foot patrolmen were stationed beside a blue wooden barrier on which was written POLICE LINE—DO NOT CROSS. A small crowd had gathered at one end of the block, held back by another barrier and two of the burliest cops Sandy had ever seen. She threw Liz a perplexed glance.

  “Don’t know,” her sister said. “Looks serious.”

  They waited for the stoplight to turn red then walked over to join the crowd.

  Liz pushed through the throng of bystanders and spoke to the nearest cop.

  “What’s happening?”

  “There’s been an incident,” he replied, his accent pure Bronx. “Please stand back.”

  “What kind of incident?” Sandy asked as she joined Liz.

  “I can’t say, ma’am.”

  “Look, officer, we’re here to visit our mother in the cancer ward,” Liz said.

  The cop, a walking mountain of muscle and gut, turned to her, disinterest written large across his uneven features.

  “Sorry, lady. Nobody’s allowed in or out, that’s all I can say. You’ll just have to wait until the detective in charge gives the all-clear.”

  He turned his back towards her, discouraging further questions.

  Liz looked angrily at Sandy, mouthing the word “bastard” under her breath. Sandy shrugged, listening to a man behind them.

  “…took out two bodies about twenty minutes ago,” he was saying to an old, bespectacled woman with gray-streaked black hair. “But I don’t know.”

  “There were three before that,” added a young woman dressed in a lilac blouse and electric-blue skirt.

  “Someone said there was a shooting,” said a man in a tan suit.

  “What?” Someone asked at the back.

  Liz leaned forward, tapping the cop on the shoulder. “Excuse me, officer.”

  The cop turned to her, his face a granite slab of indifference.

  “Our mother is dying. We’re here to visit her, and I think you should tell us what’s going on.”

  “Don’t waste your time,” the messenger beside her said. “He won’t tell you.”

  “Listen, lady. I can’t say, okay? You’ll just have to wait.”

  Two members of E.M.S. appeared in the entrance carrying a gurney loaded up with a body bag to the waiting ambulance. As they opened the rear doors, Sandy caught a glimpse of two other body bags laid out inside, one on either side of the vehicle. They placed the third bag on the floor between the other two, then locked the doors, got into the cab, and drove off.

  Liz turned to Sandy, worry lines furrowing her forehead.

  “What do you think?” Sandy asked.

  Liz shrugged. “Don’t know. But we’re not going to get anything out of him.” She jerked her thumb in the cop’s direction.

  “Let’s wait.”

  “All right. But not here. Let’s go find a coffee shop and come back in half an hour.”

  Sandy nodded, following as her sister made her way back through the crowd.

  BETH ISRAEL MEDICAL CENTER.

  FOURTH FLOOR.

  9:59 A.M.

  Detective Bob Jergens of the 7th Precinct wasn’t having a good day.

  His ex-wife had called him at 7 A.M. to remind him he was late with his child-maintenance check and screamed at him down the phone. He spilled hot coffee on his foot as he tried to control the anger building inside him after the bitch had accused him of being a selfish
dick. And to cap it all—and this was before he’d even got into the station to find another mountain of reports piled on his desk—the shower in his tiny East Side apartment was on the fritz. No hot water. He had to brave a jet of liquid ice to avoid going to work feeling like an overactive sweat gland. By the time he’d gotten a cab, he was beginning to think it was going to be one of those days when you wished you’d stayed in bed.

  How Goddamn right he’d been.

  Ten minutes after he’d started on the paperwork, the call came through requesting a SWAT team at Beth Israel. And now here he was dealing with a situation that went way beyond anything he’d seen in his eleven years on the force.

  The fourth floor of Beth Israel looked like a war zone. The floor was a lake of broken glass and blood. Two dead nurses, one dead doctor and four dead patients, all on their way to the morgue at Bellevue. Beyond the blood and carnage was the fact the security guard in front of him was babbling total bullshit.

  “Hold it, hold it!” Jergens raised a hand to slow the guy down. “What d’ya mean, ‘the patient was dead’? He’s deader than a Dodo right now because one of my men shot the sonofabitch as he was trying to take a bite outta one of your nurses!”

  “No! He was already dead—that patient died yesterday! I saw them taking the body down to the basement when I came on duty.”

  “Who was taking him to the basement?”

  “The orderlies. They put the dead ones down in the basement until we send ‘em up to Bellevue. We don’t have a morgue here. But he was dead. That guy your men shot was dead!”

  “Hold it just a minute.” Jergens took the unlit cigar from his mouth. “You’re telling me a dead patient attacked two nurses, tore one’s throat out, then tried to chew the tits off the other one?”

  “Yes!”

  Jergens rolled his eyes.

  “You’ve been watching too many horror movies, pal. Get a grip!”

  The guard waved to a harried-looking doctor with bloodstains on his white coat. “Doctor Vigil. Tell this guy—”

  “Detective Jergens.”

  “Tell Detective Jergens I’m not crazy—that man was dead!”

  Doctor Vigil straightened his horn-rimmed glasses and cleared his throat.

  “What Al says is true. That patient was dead.” He nervously licked his lips, and swallowed. “I know because he was my patient and I pronounced him dead at 11:30 yesterday morning.”

  Jergens threw up his hands in despair.

  “What’s goin’ on here? You quacks playin’ Doctor Frankenstein or somethin’? The dead do not get up and walk around. Least not the dead guys I know,” Jergens laughed hollowly.

  “Excuse me, Sergeant?”

  “Detective.” He turned to address the new speaker.

  “Sorry, Detective,” corrected a black Doctor whose name tag identified him as Michael Jeanty. “What they’re saying is right. That man was officially dead. So was the other patient. He was one of mine. He passed away around nine o’clock last night.”

  Jergens shook his head. Were they all on something? Fucking doctors were crazy. Everyone in the hospital sounded crazy. Hell, the whole fuckin’ world was going crazy!

  “This is the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve heard all week!” he shouted in exasperation. God, had someone turned Beth Israel into a nuthouse and neglected to tell him?

  I knew it. I shoulda stayed in bed.

  “All right. Okay! Let’s try it again. Take it from the top. What happened here?”

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  1:19 P.M.

  Nick had just lit the Winston when the call came through.

  Santos was bitching about side-smoke being more of a killer than smoking itself, despite the fact that the car windows were open wide.

  “Car Seven, do you copy?”

  “This is Seven,” Santos responded brusquely, pressing the send button.

  “We have a report of a 10-13 at 1181 Hanson. Car Four requests back-up.”

  “On our way.”

  Now what? Nick thought. The day had already brought them a rape, a mugging and a hold-up. All three perps had gotten away, it was 87 degrees in the shade, Santos was pissed at something and had been since they’d hit the streets.

  “Put that thing out, will ya?”

  “Sure.”

  Nick threw the cigarette out the window. Not that the few brief puffs had made a blind bit of difference anyway. He’d been wired all morning. A low-level buzz of adrenaline humming through his system, amped up by four cups of coffee and three Tylenol to help kill the hangover thumping a dull beat at the back of his head since Sandy’s call.

  Santos hit the light and the siren, and sped off.

  “Listen, kid, what you did yesterday was commendable,” Santos said loudly, competing with the siren. “But don’t get cocky. I don’t want to get my head blown off because you get trigger-happy.”

  “Sure,” Nick replied.

  “You know what they’re calling you back at the station? Killer Packard. That’s some friggin’ rep to have by the second day of training.”

  Nick had picked up on something when he’d gotten to the locker room that morning, changing in a hurry because he’d arrived there five minutes before the squad was due for the briefing in the muster room. Several of the older cops had eyed him suspiciously and Capps had gone to speak to him, but fortunately Tranksen had pulled Crapface aside, for which Nick was deeply grateful. The last thing he wanted was for that jerk to start in on some hero-worship bullshit, which, judging from the reactions of the other rookies, was what was going down among them.

  “This block’s another corner of hell,” Santos said as they reached Hanson. “Watch your step.”

  And it was.

  The tenement was in a worse state than the one they’d dealt with yesterday, its facade coated with graffiti, half the windows boarded up, the rest smeared with dirt. Garbage bags were strewn haphazardly across the sidewalk, and a couple of rats ran for cover as the car pulled up alongside the other police vehicle. Curious children stared from the building on the other side of the street.

  There was no sign of Timpone or Orr, Car Four’s crew.

  “We go in the front. Stay behind me,” Santos said before getting out and slamming the door.

  He drew his gun and walked purposely towards the entrance, a large sweat stain coating the back of his blue shirt. Nick had his hand on his gun, flicking the safety off but keeping the weapon in its holster. Santos kicked a garbage sack away from the double doors of the entrance and stepped inside.

  The ripe, over-powering scent of shit and garbage assaulted them as soon as they entered.

  And the sound of gunfire followed immediately.

  “Upstairs,” Santos shouted, bounding for the stairwell.

  Nick’s stomach tensed. Christ, he was going to have an ulcer by the end of the week. He tugged the .38 from its holster and ran after Santos.

  Three shots echoed off the walls as they raced up the stairs, incoherent shouts, profanity following.

  “—her off me!”

  “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

  Santos saw it first, and did a double take as Nick ran into his back, pushing the two of them into the hallway.

  Orr was on the ground at the far end, an Oriental girl crawling all over him, her long black hair obscuring his face as he writhed and shouted. His gun lay several feet away from him. But it was the obese black guy coming towards Timpone that made both cops freeze.

  He was about 5’ 5” and must have weighed at least 350 pounds, his huge belly rippling beneath the torn, stained NWA T-shirt as he lumbered towards the cop, a butcher knife clenched in a fat fist. No, he waddled, Nick thought. That wasn’t walking, it was fat rolling like Jell-O on legs. But that still wasn’t what had caused him and Santos to stop in their tracks. The guy was drenched in blood—fresh and dried. The dry blood stains had drained from a big, vicious knife wound which had sliced down across his chest to open up handfuls of fat that looked like 40-D breasts
; the fresh ones, from God knows where, were saturating his baggy, low slung over-sized jeans.

  How in hell could he be walking around with an untreated wound a foot across? Jesus, it didn’t—

  “Hungry, so fuckin’ hungry,” Fat Boy moaned.

  “I’m warning you, I’ll shoot!” Timpone screeched.

  “Get offa me, bitch!” Orr bellowed as he freed his left hand from the girl’s grasp and punched her in the side of the head. She jerked, still holding on to the cop.

  Fat Boy was ten feet away from Timpone.

  “Halt or we fire!” Santos called out. Timpone twitched nervously, only then aware the other cops had arrived.

  “Hungry. Wanna eat. Gotta…gotta have food. Food,” Fat Boy drooled.

  Timpone fired.

  The bullet splattered between the black guy’s tits and opened a hole the size of a silver dollar, exiting with a wet crack as a chunk of his back flew down the hallway.

  He jerked, rocking on his heels, and Nick expected him to collapse.

  But Fat Boy kept coming.

  And Orr started screaming.

  Nick saw the girl was chewing a hole into his right arm, and all hell broke loose.

  “What the fuck?” Santos yelled.

  Timpone fired again. Two shots. One to the chest, one to the gut, blowing more holes in the fat fuck with the butcher’s knife.

  Orr screamed. And screamed, thrashing around on the ground as the girl ripped away a chunk of his forearm. The cop pounded his fist into her face as she chewed.

  Fat Boy staggered, wobbled, layers of flesh rippling with each impact as Timpone squeezed another two shots into the giant target, one to the gut, the other to the groin.

  “Die you fuckin’ bastard!” He screamed.

  Nick saw another man, a Puerto Rican holding a .22, emerge from a doorway at the far end of the hall, as Santos fired off three rounds into Fat Boy.

  Still, the fucker kept coming, intestines starting to bulge from the holes in his gut.

  “Hungry. Gotta—”

  “Look out,” Nick shouted as the Puerto Rican aimed the gun—this is insane! —a silent scream in his mind as he brought up his .38 and dropped into a crouch.