Dark City Blue: A Tom Bishop Rampage

by Luke Preston

  ‘Just pick him up and go inside,’ Bishop said. ‘That’s all you need to do.’

  They swapped glances three ways. Then, after a moment, they picked up their friend and went back into the bar.

  Bishop parked on Errol Street two blocks away and crossed over Queensberry Street. He caught a glimpse of their reflection in a shopfront window. He had picked up a tail.

  Sweat rolled down the back of his neck. His hands grew clammy and his stomach churned. The tail was too far behind for him to make them out. He counted the steps: six seconds behind. Anywhere between ten and fifteen feet.

  At the end of the block stood a closed bank with vandalised ATMs lining one wall of the building. Bishop took the corner, slammed against the wall, yanked out his weapon and waited.

  SIX.

  One deep breath. Held it.

  FIVE.

  Gripped the weapon.

  FOUR.

  A couple turned and headed in the other direction.

  THREE.

  Got his footing.

  TWO.

  Don’t miss.

  ONE.

  The tail stepped around the corner. Bishop grabbed hold. Fingers in neck. Slammed against the wall. Gun to the skull. Hold back. Stop.

  Ellison.

  A strand of hair fell across her sweaty face. Her mouth opened, gasping for air. Bishop let her go.

  He clocked the street. Rubbish chased rubbish down the footpath, but otherwise it was quiet. She appeared to be alone.

  “Goddamnit, what are you doing?”

  ‘I came to help you,’ she said.

  Bishop holstered his weapon. ‘Go home, Ellison. Just go home.’

  Tired, his nerves shot, he stepped toward the Commodore. Ellison trailed behind him.

  ‘You can’t do this on your own,’ she said. ‘You need me.’

  He yanked open the driver’s side door and shot a glance over the roof. ‘Ellison, go home.’

  ‘I know where the money is.’

  For a brief moment, his heart stopped. By the time it started up again, a smile had grown in the corners of her mouth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was Rayburn all along, wasn’t it?’

  Bishop bit. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I hear things,’ she said. ‘Some people don’t think very much of me.’

  ‘Where’s the cash?’

  ‘Am I on the case?’

  ‘This isn’t a case.’

  ‘If you try to finish this by yourself, you’re not going to make it,’ she said.

  ‘It’s going to get a hell of a lot bloodier before this thing is over,’ Bishop said.

  Ellison shot him a sly smile. ‘So long as I don’t break a nail.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  She shifted in her seat and tried to steer clear of Jay Franks’ blood, then poked a finger though the bullet hole in the windscreen that had created it.

  ‘Looks like you pissed somebody off,’ she said.

  ‘Some people are sensitive.’

  She lit a couple of cigarettes and passed one to Bishop. He rolled down the window. A gust of hot air drifted through the cabin. ‘How did you get the address?’

  ‘Rayburn had me doing witness reports,’ she said. ‘All the witnesses were dead, so all that was left for me to do was interview the staff at the casino who loaded the truck before it was hit. One of the guards turned out to be Jay Franks, but he wasn’t one of the victims. I went to Rayburn; he and Cooper told me they were already on it, that Jay Franks was working with the stick-up men they arrested. Something about it smelled like shit. When they left, I followed them to this house. After twenty minutes, I snuck around the side and peeked through the window. I saw Rayburn, Cooper and Warren counting up slabs of cash, blocks of it. Then it all made sense: the robbery, Jay Franks, you. I sat with my ear glued to the radio waiting for you to surface. Picked up your trail at the hospital when a nurse called it in.’

  Ellison’s story was cut short by the howl of a police siren. Bishop clocked the rear-view: a fleet with flashing reds and blues accelerated toward them. Bishop pulled over to the kerb, left the engine running.

  ‘They’ve been on us since we left,’ he said.

  ‘You didn’t say anything.’

  ‘I was hoping it was just a coincidence.’

  The street was dead except for a couple of teenage future criminals in basketball jerseys three sizes too big with spray cans in their hands. They watched the show from the burnt-out shell of a car on the other side of the road, their feet aimed for a nearby alley in case things went south.

  The uniforms took their time. Bishop watched them in the rear–view: both looked to be in their mid–twenties, and that they thought they knew everything worth knowing. One wore mirrored aviators and the other still had his baby fat. They climbed out of the fleet, strolled on over like a couple of kids playing cops and robbers. From Bishop’s point of view, it had only been a few years since they had.

  Bishop, remembering the corpse of Mickey Franks in the boot of the car, drew his weapon, pushed it between his thigh and the seat. Ellison did the same. She was edgy, sweating.

  ‘Relax,’ he told her.

  She didn’t, but tried to give the impression that she had. The uniforms flanked the car. The one with the mirrored shades leant down and rested his tattooed arm against the door. The Jay Franks paint job was the first thing to get his attention.

  ‘What happened in here?’ he asked.

  With a shrug and a glance Ellison’s way, Bishop said, ‘Women. What can you do?’

  Shades nodded his head slowly. He produced a breathalyser and flaunted it in Bishop’s face.

  ‘Blow in this, please, sir,’ he asked with a slight glance at Ellison’s breasts.

  Bishop badged him, making sure he didn’t have time to get too good a look. ‘I’m Detective Fairbarn.’ He motioned to Ellison. ‘Detective Mason. We’re on the job right now and you’re kind of blowing our cover.’

  Shades stepped back. On Ellison’s side, the other uniform lingered. His waist was all they could see through the window, but Bishop’s attention was drawn to his hand resting on his weapon. Nothing about this stop was routine. No matter what happened in the next couple of minutes, resisting arrest was how they were writing it up.

  ‘Can you open the boot, please, sir?’

  Slowly, Bishop pulled the key and opened the door.

  Shades blocked it with his hand and nodded his head. ‘From in there.’

  ‘Can’t,’ Bishop said. ‘Needs a key.’

  The infant gave this some thought and nodded again. His grip eased on the door and Bishop stepped halfway out.

  ‘That’s far enough,’ the other uniform said.

  ‘Alright,’ Bishop tossed the keys to him over the roof of the car.

  Chubby caught them, moved to the back of the vehicle, keyed the boot. Nothing. He jiggled the key: still nothing. And there wasn’t going to be anything either, so long as Bishop’s foot remained on the lever that opened it from the inside.

  The uniform let a few profanities leak from his lips before giving up with a shrug. Shades moved to give his partner a hand.

  ‘It’s jammed or something.’

  Bishop reached for his weapon, held it low and lifted his foot from the lever.

  The boot bounced open. Bishop and Ellison moved. Before either of the uniforms could think about reacting to the bloody mess that was Mickey Franks, they each had the dangerous end of a shooter pointed at their chests.

  ‘Bet you regret opening that now, don’t you?’ Bishop said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘You can’t fuckin’ leave us here,’ the fat one cried. ‘You can’t fuckin’ do it.’

  ‘We’re cops.’

  ‘Rayburn will have your fuckin’ arses.’

  They didn’t put up much of a fight, just a lot of bad noise. Now they were in the boot of their own patrol car, with their own cuffs around their wrists and their service revolvers tosse
d into a nearby stormwater drain. They mouthed off until Bishop gagged them and once he did, they kicked and scuffled until he slammed the boot.

  Bishop turned the Holden over and pulled into the street. A few blocks later they merged with the afternoon traffic and were on the Western Ring Road.

  The wind blew with a drunken violence down the street, howling and throwing up dust from where the gardens were meant to be. Some of the empty houses in the subdivision were ready to be lived in, others nothing more than wooden shells with plastic

  sheets for walls.

  Ellison leant forward and peered through the filthy windscreen. ‘That’s it, over there,’ she said, and pointed to a house on the right. They cruised past: no car in the driveway, no movement through the curtains. No sign of anything.

  Bishop pulled into a gravel driveway a couple of wooden frames down and shut off the engine. Ellison shot him a worried look.

  ‘Do you think we need backup? Last time, there were three of them.’

  Bishop scratched at his stubble, he could hear the fear in her voice. ‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said. ‘You can walk away. If it goes bad, no one will know a thing; if I come out with the cash, you can bring it in with me.’

  Ellison looked out the dusty rear window at the bleakness behind. ‘Fuck it,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  The wind slapped Bishop across the face as he stepped into the street. Ellison slid next to him, unholstered her weapon, checked the chamber and let it slide back into place.

  ‘I’ll take the back,’ he said. ‘Give me ten minutes, then come through the front.’

  She nodded and he set off down the dusty road. When he came up on the house, Bishop pulled his .45 and held it by his thigh. His boots sunk in the mud, covering them in a shitty shade of mud as he moved down the side of the house, past three larger windows and one that looked to belong to a laundry or bathroom. The second floor was laid out the same. Bishop couldn’t see much besides dark rooms and afternoon glare. Nothing in the backyard either: no dirty cops, no fifteen million. He worked his way across to the back door, pressed his ear against it.

  Nothing.

  Wrapping his fingers around the doorknob, he turned it, found it unlocked. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him, the wind reduced to nothing more than muffled thumps against the windows.

  The kitchen had been abandoned before the benches were in place. The walls had been painted in various shades of white, and the fixtures were cheap.

  Then he heard it: a sound upstairs. A thump followed shortly by another, then another after that. Bishop readied his weapon and found his way to the staircase.

  The upstairs hall ran both left and right, with the stairs placed dead centre. He turned right, in the direction of the muffled thumps. The first two rooms came up empty.

  Only one room left.

  Bishop took a breath, stepped through the doorway.

  Empty.

  No longer muffled by the walls, the blind slapped against the open window. Bishop relaxed, dropped his gaze, noticing that his footprints had followed him in. Mud tracked every step he had taken. Bishop pushed open the bathroom door with the barrel of his .45. It was just what you’d expect: a sink, shower, toilet. All of it covered in plastic.

  Nobody had stepped foot in there in months.

  Bishop took the stairs three steps at a time, Ellison was in the lounge room.

  Sunlight poured through the lounge-room blinds, falling across her face like bars.

  ‘Find anything?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve been set up. Nobody’s been here in months. Let’s go.’

  Outside, a car pulled up. Doors opened and closed.

  Gunfire blasted through the lounge-room window. The blinds danced as bullets tore through them leaving shards of light in their wake. Bishop hit the deck. They were firing off so many rounds it was difficult to tell where and how many shooters there were.

  Bishop returned fire. Unloaded an entire clip randomly through the blinds and into the street.

  Gunfire ceased. Clips and clanks. Reloading. He climbed to his feet and ejected the clip, slamming in another and unleashing nine tiny explosions blindly through the window. The room blew up around him with plaster slabs falling from the walls and crumbling over in puffs of dust.

  Empty – he ejected the clip. Rammed in a fresh one. Nine rounds later Bishop was empty again.

  Silence.

  A layer of smoke hung in the air and exposed itself in the beams of light protruding from the gentle sway of the blinds. He held his breath and slid the last magazine into the weapon.

  Footsteps. Car doors. Tyres on the gravel. It was all over in the space of twenty seconds.

  He holstered his weapon, wiped the smoke from his eyes and when he opened them it was to the sight of Ellison face down on the floor in a pool of her own blood.

  Bishop fell to his knees, put pressure on her wound and pumped her chest. He talked to her and tried to get her to wake up but there was no point. One of the first bullets to come through the window had pierced her lung and killed her not long after. Somewhere, buried deep inside him, logic had kicked in and he knew that there was no bringing her back but his heart wouldn’t accept it, so Bishop continued to pump her chest while her vacant eyes stared at the roof and tears rolled down his face.

  It was the pain that caused him to stop. At first he couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. Then he saw the blood on his shirt, and then he found the bullet hole in his gut.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  He was driving so fast the lines on the road looked like dots. In fifteen minutes the adrenaline would wear off and the pain would kick in. An hour or so later his body would shut down and he’d pass out. A couple of hours after that he’d be dead.

  Bishop pulled a phone out of Ellison’s handbag and left bloody fingerprints on the screen as he dialled. After the third ring Dennis answered. He told Bishop to piss off and hung up.

  Bishop had busted him a couple of years ago for practising medicine without a licence. Now, instead of performing backyard abortions and tending to GSWs, he was running a Crime Converters in Sunshine.

  He bounced the car up onto the gutter and brought it to a stop with the handbrake. He had the sweats, the shakes, his vision was blurred and his coordination gone. The bell on the shop door rang as Bishop stumbled through it. Rows of obsolete televisions lined the walls, saxophones and guitars hung from the ceiling. Dennis emerged from somewhere out the back. The hope of a customer faded from his eyes, his smile disappearing as he caught sight of Bishop.

  ‘I told you not to bloody come here,’ Dennis yelled with enough force to make his comb-over fall out of place.

  ‘I’m here now. Are you going to do what you do?’

  Dennis’s gaze fell to the pool of blood that had formed by Bishop’s feet, but remained unmoved. ‘Get out of me fucking store.’

  His wife, Kirsty, stepped out from the back. ‘What the fuck is all this?’

  ‘None of your business,’ Dennis yelled. ‘Out the back.’

  ‘I told you no more of this shit.’ She pointed to the blood on the floor. ‘Who’s going to clean that up?’

  ‘Shut up, I’ll clean it, I’ll clean it, you fucking nag.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, now I’m a fucking nag. I don’t hear you complaining when—’

  Bishop was feeling woozy and all the yelling was giving him a headache. ‘Hey,’ he said quietly.

  The pair of them turned to him as though surprised he was still there.

  ‘Is someone going to pull this bullet out of me, or am I going to have to die right here on your floor?’

  *

  Blood fell from the tip of Bishop’s boot and grew into a puddle on the concrete floor. It covered his sock, ran up the inside of his leg and came to a stop at the hole in his belly. It wasn’t big enough to push a finger through but was big enough to pump blood out every time his heart beat, and when it did, a new wave of crimson covered his badge. Bishop uncl
ipped it and tried to wipe the tarnished shield clean but no matter how hard he tried it still remained stained.

  Dennis moved around his dusty storeroom while he collected the tools of his trade: scalpels, needles, vials and clamps. He laid them out delicately on an old Vic Bitter serving tray, then leant down to get a closer look at the bullet hole. ‘Not so bad,’ he said. ‘Not as bad as the others.’

  In comparison to the bullet scar around Bishop’s heart and the two in his back, it wasn’t. But Bishop wasn’t about to get cocky.

  Dennis searched around in his little black bag of illegal medications and pulled out a vial. ‘Patched this guy up once,’ he said. ‘Got one in the gut, just like you. He lived – died three weeks later though.’

  ‘At least he had you to comfort him.’

  ‘Oh, not from the gunshot,’ Dennis said as he stuck a needle into the vial. ‘Got bricked in his sleep.’

  ‘Bricked?’

  To make his point, Dennis pretended to have a brick in his hand and beat someone over the head with it. The re-enactment didn’t fill Bishop with confidence. ‘For the pain,’ Dennis said, stabbing Bishop in the arm with a needle. ‘All good,’ he said.

  It wasn’t all good.

  Bishop tried to stand but the world fell from under him.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Two weeks ago

  Tom Bishop sat on the edge of the bed. He had found himself being drawn to the room more and more over the past couple of days, and when he was there he was very quiet, almost as if Alice was still asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. He did his best to keep the room exactly the way she had left it: her moisturiser on the bed stand, her book still marked with a creased page two-thirds of the way through, the indentation in the pillow. He would look over her things and, occasionally, hold one in his hand, but he always made sure that everything was put back exactly where he found it.

  Time passed slowly that morning, and yet Bishop was running late. He had been sitting on the edge of the bed for the past hour; he knew that all he had to do was lean down and tie his shoelace, but there it was, untied.