Bad Night Is Falling

by Gary Phillips

  “Not a goddamn thing,” Monk said. “What?”

  “Look.”

  Cutting across the field was a Datsun 510 with fat tires.

  “Some of your Domingos buddies are coming to say hi, I think.” Seguin smiled wickedly at Monk. “They couldn’t possibly be part of this hit. Not being that obvious.”

  “Morons,” Monk said softly.

  They waited, the car came to a halt. Norteña music blared from the thing, as it sat there, windows down.

  “Now what?” Monk said, exasperated. “Waste what little firepower we got on these chuckleheads?”

  “Maybe they are working with the silenced boys,” Seguin amended.

  “I doubt it. This seems more of a payback visit for Big Loco.” Monk got up. “I’m going to step out, you try to get around them.”

  “They might just cap you, you know.”

  “Let’s hope they want to make me squirm first.”

  Monk walked out, accordion and horns beating back the sound of the drenching rain. He’d tucked the Ultrastar away. The driver and passenger doors creaked open. The lanky kid with the bad teeth, and another vato he didn’t know were now out of the Datsun. As he got closer, he spotted a crumpled paper bag on the dash in front of the driver’s wheel.

  “’Sup, moreno?” the skinny one said, snickering. He was high, swaying slightly as if only he could hear the secret rhythm of the downpour as it mixed with the music on his Blaupunkt.

  “You the one,” Monk said. Absently, he wondered if it was paint or glue in the sack.

  The other one was more in control. “Sumpthin’s ain’t cool, homes.”

  “Goddamn straight it ain’t,” Seguin called from behind. “Don’t turn and don’t move.”

  Monk felt their presence seconds before he heard the grinding of the black Isuzu’s clutch torque into gear. The vehicle raced toward them fast from the Washington Boulevard side of the Rancho. He snatched the Ultrastar loose.

  He bowled past the skinny one and got behind the wheel.

  “Say, motherfuckah!” he screamed, advancing and pulling out the revolver he had under his oversized jacket.

  Seguin put a bullet in the ground before him. “Put it down, asshole,” he barked.

  Monk wasn’t waiting to see if there was compliance. He got the car around and Seguin piled in. They tore off toward the shell of the A. Philip Randolph Advancement and Placement Center. The Isuzu did a wicked right, and started to angle in after them.

  Rain thundered on the Datsun’s thin roof, and neither man could tell if the silenced weapons were clattering as they retreated—until the back window spiderwebbed and the side mirror flew off.

  “¡Dále gas, Ivan, Dále gas!” Seguin bellowed.

  The Datsun bounced savagely over the tracks and Monk plowed it through the already sagging chain link fence. Something snapped under the frame, and the car’s front end lurched down on the left side. The tire was ground down, unable to revolve unfettered in the tire well. The tire gave, and as it blew, the car vibrated widely. The 510 continued to shimmy and Monk fought the wheel to aim it toward the door on the far end of the main building. The same door he couldn’t get into before.

  “Somebody’s been doing some home improvement,” Seguin declared. There was new eight-foot iron fencing, spiked at the top, bracketing two sides of the center where dilapidated chain link had stood just a few days earlier.

  Just as the cop finished his sentence, the banged-up car whacked against the wall, and the two men leapt out of the thing on the run. Seguin shot the door handle twice and they tumbled inside. “It’s darker than hell in here,” the cop observed.

  “You don’t suppose our buddies out there have night vision goggles, do you?” Monk wasn’t kidding.

  “I imagine they’ll let us know soon enough.”

  Monk grabbed Seguin’s arm. “Come on, if I remember right, there are rooms farther back this way.” They started, their eyes adjusting to the gloom. The grey light of the day provided weak halos around the upper window frames that ran the length of the large room. Cold air settled in where the glass had once been. The lower windows on the far side of the building were opaque with grime and rain.

  “Jesus,” Seguin hissed. The sound of his foot striking something brought both of them to a halt.

  Monk peered down. “It’s a mattress, I think.”

  “Maybe I’ll shoot it just to make sure.”

  They both laughed nervously, their breath forming small clouds of condensation.

  The door they’d come in through banged against the wall. The figure of a man could be discerned in stark silhouette. He began to lay down fire, his rounds making their vip-vip sound as he rotated the weapon back and forth. Calm and methodical, like a man hosing down his parched lawn.

  Monk and Seguin had spread out and each unloaded two shots into the backlit figure. He went over backwards like a cardboard cutout.

  “I guess that answers the question about the goggles.” Seguin was moving toward the other rooms.

  Monk hesitated; he was considering going after the dead man’s piece.

  Seguin could read his mind. “Forget it, Ivan. That’s a sucker’s play.”

  “You’re right.” They went off. Rounding a corner, Monk collided with something heavy and solid. It took a few moments to recognize the machinery in the half light. “Drill press.”

  “We can do the tour later,” Seguin advised, pulling Monk along. The two wound through several twists and turns until they encountered a stairwell.

  “Let me see something. Watch my back.” Monk ascended.

  Seguin reared back against the wall of the stairwell, his eyes wide in the near dark, his ears seeking to differentiate the thrashing of the rain from the footsteps of predators. There was a brief something in the air his instincts told him wasn’t Mother Nature talking, but he stayed put. He’d wait, and watch and sweat.

  Presently Monk came back down, breathless. “Let’s hat,” he gulped. He talked while they moved about. “There’s windows up on the second floor in this big classroom. The Isuzu is parked in back, and there’s one dude out in the rain, on guard duty.”

  Thinking about the noise he couldn’t place, Seguin asked, “Did he spot you?”

  “I took a shot at him and he returned fire. Maybe they’ll check upstairs first, give us more time.”

  “The question, Ivan, is for what.”

  “Details, my son, details.”

  After several more hallways and turns and through a couple of rooms, the two reached a passageway; weak light crept its length. “Could be a dead fucking end,” Seguin choked.

  “Let’s go down the rabbit hole, Alice. At least cinder block is good for something besides proletarian architecture.”

  “It does slow down them high-velocity projectiles,” Seguin agreed.

  Their feelers tingling, the two eased along, one on either side of the corridor. “There’s a door here,” Monk announced. A wind had kicked up outside, shoving even more rain inside through the busted-out windows. The rain swirled and howled overhead like an entity searching for a host.

  Monk forced the wooden door open and the two went inside.

  Seguin shut the door, listening at it for several seconds.

  There was more light from the horizontal windows high up and parallel to the ceiling line. “Okay, six strokes at best, given the seating capacity of the Isuzu. And that would mean one of them riding in the cargo part too.”

  Seguin tugged on his mustache. “We for sure dropped the doorman. But what about the one on the roof?”

  “Let’s assume he’s still frisky, and may have recovered his AK. Or whatever the hell it is they’re shooting.” Monk shifted about, wishing in vain that he could hear something above the rain and wind. The sizeable room they were in contained three rows of long, built-in lab style tables and drawers. There was a clump of stuff in the corner, and Monk walked over to investigate the mass.

  “Filing cabinets and desks upended, shoved toge
ther.” He stared at the pile as if it were a paean to office decorating. “Some rolling chairs too.”

  “That junk ain’t gonna provide much cover, Ivan,” Seguin said, scanning the room.

  Monk halted. Oddly, he could hear a guitar strain coming to him over the sound of the beating rain. It was an old blues refrain, and it teased him, hovering beyond recognition. The tune was the one he’d heard diving out of Cady’s apartment. Who in hell was it? Son House? Elmore James? No, it must be Charlie Patton, he was sure of it now. And where was it coming from?

  “It’s not that, Marasco.” Monk forced himself to focus. “This stuff is new, like that fence outside. It has to do with whatever it is DeKovan and his cohorts are up to.”

  Seguin walked past the furnishings and touched the wall nearby. “Look at this.”

  Monk joined him. “What the hell …?” He knocked his knuckles against the part of the wall that was recessed. “A metal door.”

  “A thick-like-lard door, like a friggin’ vault, man.” Seguin looked the slab up and down, feeling its surface with his fingertips. “Rolled steel, homie.”

  Rain whooped and Monk pivoted toward the front of the room. “They must be inside by now,” he whispered.

  Seguin’s 9mm was also pointing at the front entrance. “We can make a pretty good stand in here. The doorway’s narrow, and even if they come in blasting, those damned filing cabinets are good at least for …” He trailed off as both men holstered their pistols and went to work.

  Moving as quickly and silently as possible, the two lifted the file cabinets and placed them in front of the door—giant rooks in the game they were trapped in. They knew the office furniture wouldn’t serve as effective barriers, but were useful as alarms should they fall.

  “Two Bogart through the door,” Seguin began, verbalizing the scenario running through his mind. “Get tripped up on the cabinets.”

  “We send those two to the happy hunting grounds with us,” Monk added. He unsheathed the .45, shifting the Ultrastar to his left hand. The private eye held up the two automatics. “I always wanted to go out with my guns blazing, there, Tex.”

  “The others swoop in, letting loose with their big bad guns. Left to right, up to down.” Seguin put his gun under his armpit, in order to rub his slick hands against the legs of his jeans.

  “Then we get on either side of the door,” Monk assessed. “If they shoot through the door, they’ll have to wonder about what they’ve hit when they hear the noise of their bullets striking the cabinets. They’ve got to get the door open, and we run up, and pop out from around the cabinets.”

  “Maybe drop two more that way also,” Seguin theorized. “But if we’re too close, ricocheting fire might get us,” Seguin advised.

  “Standing back here is useless,” Monk insisted. “Their eyes are used to this light by now also.”

  “Too bad we can’t get inside that room.” Seguin jerked his head in the direction of the massive door.

  “You got an extra magazine?” Monk asked, his voice low, his senses stretched.

  Seguin shook his head. “I keep it in the glove compartment, ’cause it chafes against my side when I’m sitting down,” he said with chagrin.

  Monk was near him, a thin smile on his face. “I might have lost count, but I think I’ve got three left in the Ultrastar and still a full seven in the forty-five.”

  Seguin looked off, then directly into Monk’s grim features. “Then that’s what we got, Ivan, twenty-three shots—”

  “Twenty-three tries,” Monk interpreted.

  There were noises in the corridor. The duo sprinted into position. One on either side of the doorway, each man readied himself at least twenty feet from the entrance. Monk had propped up one of the desks for minimal protection. Seguin was crouched behind a legal-sized filing cabinet. The activity beyond the door was becoming more pronounced.

  “Ivan,” Seguin began, barely audible, “whatever happens, whatever goes down, you know you and me was always straight.”

  “Absolutely, bro’.”

  The door splintered into ziggurats of wood as their attackers unleashed random firepower. The office furniture piled in front of the entrance lit up as if struck by ball lightning. One of the cabinets fell over and several metallic clangs reverberated in the room. Then the smell of gas filled their nostrils.

  “Assholes,” Monk swore. One of the open gas cans had landed near him, the odor sinister in its intent.

  A volley of more bullets was followed by beer bottles being tossed into the room. The bottles were filled with gas and their wicks were lit. As they shattered, coagulating pools of gas erupted into climbing pyres of yellow-white incandescence, casting freakish gelatinous chiaroscuro forms into the pockets of the room. The storm was unyielding outside, the beat it meted out forming a rhythm that seemed to announce their imminent death.

  “Motherfucker,” Monk announced at their cruelty. It wasn’t enough to rush in and blast them to pieces—after all, that might put a couple of their shooters at jeopardy. Better to burn them out, put the victims to the torch, as they had done to the Cruzados.

  There were more shots and Monk saw Seguin diving forward, starkly illuminated by a river of flaming gas, and pumping three at an arm trying to throw its payload. The arm jerked, dropping the Molotov in the hallway. There was a commotion, and fire was now dancing out in the corridor too.

  “Aw, shit, man,” a familiar voice screamed.

  “I’m hit,” another voice hollered.

  “You more than that, you silly bitch. You just keep fucking up like you was taking a class in it.” There was a burst of gunfire.

  Monk was tired of waiting to die. He tore the cuff and part of his sleeve off, and ignited the cloth in the fire. Then he stepped from around the desk, heat and panic making his face slick with sweat. It was as if he were caught up in some druidic ceremony that only Los Angeles tumbling pell-mell into the twenty-first century could dream up. He and Seguin were the sorry replacements for the unsullied sacrificial maidens.

  His friend was pressed up close against the door, submerged in one of the few remaining areas of darkness. Monk had held onto the gas can that had landed close to him, his flaming cuff wrapped around the lip. He flung the can at two men who’d pressed into the room.

  The container bounced off the chest of one of me men, and a trail of burning liquid leapt from his torso down to his crotch. Reflexively he swung his gun onto Monk as Seguin opened fire from the side. The man dived into another patch of shadows on the same side of the room as the LAPD detective.

  The other shooter was firing and Monk was moving, shoving the pile of office furniture at him. Put your shoulder into it, Monk. Drive, drive, he could hear his old high school coach Jim Young exhorting him as he hit the tackling sled. His body upset the tall filing cabinets as Monk climbed and scampered onto the metal dominoes, his momentum carrying him out into the hallway. Underneath the pile of cabinets, the gunman squirmed, seeking to free himself and his weapon.

  Monk was rocked back and forth like he was riding a bronco, and he popped four rounds in rapid succession among the crevices between the toppled items. The bucking ceased, and a cabinet slid over.

  The light from the fire in the hall revealed Isaiah Booker’s white bodyguard. He was dressed in slacks, sport coat, and a white, banded-collar silk shirt. The shirt was now splotchy with carmine stains. The thin strand of his ponytail lapped over his face like a giant dead worm. A weighty gold ring with a marbled jade setting was on a finger of the killer’s hand, which still gripped his warm MK-9. The Raptor suppressor clamped on the end of the gun’s barrel was a mat black in contrast to the shiny finish of the wicked war toy.

  Images registered in miniseconds as Monk attempted to right himself. Behind him, he heard the truculent echoing of the other attacker’s silenced weapon. “Marasco!” he bellowed, his feet and legs tangled in the Staples detritus. He was trying to get oriented, but it seemed like everything was happening in accelerated time, and
he was stuck in slow gear.

  “Shit yes.”

  An assault gun clacked sibilantly, and pain racked Monk’s leg.

  “Put the gun down, chump.” It was B.B., the dyed blond with the maroon wedge. His other hoop earring twinkled, catching the fire’s light. The other side of his head had a bandage where his other ear used to be. His piece was centered unwaveringly on Monk.

  Desolate, he tossed the .45 onto the floor. He’d never reach the MK. His lower leg, where Blondie had shot him, bled freely. But it seemed as if his mind were detaching itself from his body, and that soon all his pain would be a sensation without a home. Was that the “Dead Letter Blues” blowing in below the howl? Put my baby on the coolin’ board. Would Jill and his mother lay him out?

  “I’m going to dot you like you did me.” Blondie swaggered closer, giving Monk a better look at the gauze and tape plastered on the side of his head. “Take off half your motherfuckin’ face ’fore I shoot you in the dick, then really start on you.”

  A subconscious clarity took hold of Monk. By the undulating jonquil light, he recognized the man’s weapon as an Uzi 41 A.E., with the .40 Smith & Wesson aluminum magazine, adaptor, and suppressor. Very efficient, very professional. Not a gun sold to gangbangers out of the trunks of Chevys like the assembly-line Norinco Chinese model AK.

  “What are DeKovan and Maladrone up to?” He was tired, and he let his head thud against the wall. He wanted it to be over. His knee throbbed, and his lower leg was losing feeling. The fire was spreading. Fuck it, let it come. I love you guys. But goddamnit, he wanted to know. “What’s in the room back there? The one with that door on it.”

  Blondie roared and got closer still. He was breathing like a dynamo whose breakers had shorted. He stood triumphantly over Monk. “I ain’t even gonna give you the satisfaction, man.” Fleetingly, an emotion that might have been respect nuanced his look, then disappeared. “It bees this way.” The gun came up and Blondie blinked, his shots going right and wide of his mark.

  Like a man coming up one last time for air, Monk’s incentive returned and he reached out with both hands, grabbing and yanking on the other man’s legs. Blondie reaimed the Uzi at Monk’s head. Instinctively, futilely, Monk latched a hand around the suppressor screwed onto the gun’s barrel. Blondie gurgled and drooled. His face lit from within with purpose as he struggled to free the gun. Yet his strength left him and he fell forward, sprawled across Monk and the filing cabinets. There was a neat hole up high, a little off center, in his upper back.