Infernal Affairs

by Declan Finn

  I fired, and the world exploded around me.

  Chapter 8

  Blue Mountain

  The gunfire rocked me. I had caught one of the attackers as his gun leveled at my face. The bullet caught him squarely in the bridge of his nose and dropped him. He had been the one in a crouch, at the right side of the door frame.

  However, at least one of the next three guns had a solid lock on me.

  Almost the same second I fired, the shotgun behind me went off again. It caught the crouched gunman on the other side.

  The explosion directly behind me, over my head, seriously rang my bell. Both of the remaining two gunman fell.

  I didn’t look at who shot who, but I darted forward to the door. I remained in a crouch as I looked around the doorway. There were both more zombies and more living attackers in the hallway.

  I ducked back into the apartment. “Honey. Rifle.”

  D laughed so loud, I even heard it over the ringing in my ears. I looked up, and he dual-wielded 50-cal Desert Eagles. That’s how he’d taken down two at once. Mariel had the shotgun behind him.

  “First,” D said, “don’t call me honey. And don’t worry, Detective. You’re in my house. Also, all of the apartments on this floor are filled with my guys.”

  Gunshots came from the hallway. I waited for a moment, then looked out. The floor was carpeted with fresh bodies … and less fresh zombies.

  “See, told you,” D said. “It’s how we keep the apartment. No witnesses live on this floor, just my men.”

  I nodded. It was the only thing I could do. I was going to ask how D managed to remain hidden in a heavily Jewish neighborhood when he clearly wasn’t. But if all of his immediate neighbors were his men, really, who’d notice? If he really wanted to be a secret, he’d simply not go out through the front door, but through some other level—the basement, the garage, the kitchen if he so chose.

  “And the upper floors won’t hear the gunshots?”

  “I have an agreement with security. The neighbors will call building security. They and I will talk. No big deal. The real problem, though, is how they found us. No one knows about this place. And we’re real careful about going in and out of here.”

  I nodded. I shared his concern. I went for the nearest gunman’s body and turned him over. The gunman was black, with long dreadlocks that went halfway down his back.

  “Jamaicans,” D muttered. “I hate these guys. They can be annoying.”

  I frowned. “I guess that explains the zombies.”

  “The word on the Dark Web is spreading, apparently.”

  I bent down and frisked the four gunmen. On the fourth, I found a map of New York City and a crystal on a rope.

  From the couch, D’s wife Anna asked, “Am I hallucinating, or is that a scrying crystal?”

  I nodded. I had seen something like this on the History Channel. One of Hitler’s occultist buddies had scried for a sunken warship and found it. What they used had been something like this.

  It was also pointed out that when scrying for a person, it helped to have clothing, a bit of hair, nails, or something else that once belonged to the person targeted. I didn’t want to think of how many different things could have been used. Hell, someone could have gone through my old house and took hair out of the drains. Then again, given that fellow cops were coming after me, checking my locker after this was all over wasn’t that bad an idea.

  “This isn’t the same guy?” D asked. “He sounded more Haitian before you whacked him. But how many people can do zombies?”

  I frowned thoughtfully. I didn’t have the heart to tell D that, even though we had thrown the creature that called itself Bokor Baracus into a massive fire pit meant for burning sacrifices to Moloch, he was still alive. Apparently, he was also the “Deputy Mayor for Social Justice” or some other stupid made-up name. I didn’t know if we had faced down a double, like a golem made of flesh, or a homunculus, or what. Maybe he was also able to bi-locate. Ever since I ran into the demon, I decided to research everything I could about my condition and my abilities. However, when you type “bi-location” into Wikipedia, the page for it notes that it was also a trick that the occultist Aleister Crowley also claimed to have. If it were truly something the dark side could pull off, this would get complicated.

  Well, more complicated than it had been already.

  “If they can find you, does that mean we need to lock down the building?” D asked.

  I shook my head and stood. “No. I had no beef with these guys before today. I didn’t know they existed, and probably the reverse is also true. They had to scry to get my location. If they did that, then they wouldn’t have shared that information. No one wants to share a bounty, even if it is ten million dollars. If they were willing to share, they would have had more gunmen, fewer zombies. Anyone else wants to find me again, they’ll have to do a fresh scry, and I’m going to be out of here.”

  “Point taken. Walk with me.”

  This time, we took the stairs. D holstered his guns before we started down.

  “First, where are you and Alex going to go?”

  “Ormeno is out of jail.”

  D paused on a step but caught up. “Any reason why?”

  “We’re an asylum city, remember? Apparently, flouting federal law is in.”

  D shook his head. “I never thought I’d hear myself worried about the cops not enforcing the law. Do you have any ideas where he might be?”

  “Not a clue. I’m going to have to do some checking. Unless you have any feelers out on MS-13.”

  “Since Ormeno was arrested, they’ve been more interested in getting him out than trying to expand. I guess they felt he was really just that important. He’s as good a place to start as any.”

  I nodded, adding nothing else. But the thought process was easy. If one made a Venn diagram about the people who hated me to levels of homicidal intent and overlapped it with people who could afford ten million dollars, there weren’t many… technically.

  Sure, Rene Ormeno wasn’t personally wealthy. But if he could direct the entire wealth of MS-13 against me, then yes, $10 million wouldn’t be a stretch.

  On the other hand, the Mayor—or his deputy—could easily raise that sort of cash.

  If there were any hidden assets from the cult or the Women’s Health Corps, then any random cultist with access could come at me …

  So, that really meant there’s any number of random Cultists or MS-13 members who might want my head.

  So at the end of the day, there was only one thing that made sense: investigate the people we know. That meant Ormeno, Deputy Mayor Baracus, and maybe Mayor Hoynes himself. Perhaps one of the latter two was this “Warlock” that Ormeno had talked about in the loony bin.

  Either way, we were going to find the source of this menace, and we were going to put a stake through its black heart. Literally or metaphorically, whichever worked best.

  “Are you going to be working alone?”

  I shook my head. “Alex is in the car.”

  “Ah, yes, the esteemed Detective Packard.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear you refer to him as that.”

  “Indeed.” We got to the bottom of the stairs, and he opened the door leading outside for me. “You’ll have to walk out the rest of the way. Sorry about not seeing you to your car, but I would like to keep a low profile.”

  “Understandable.”

  “That being said, don’t be surprised if Packard is a little putout. I had my men bring you a gift.”

  I frowned, slightly worried about what gift that could be. D laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing that interesting.”

  I shrugged, thanked him again, and he just waved me away.

  When I arrived back at the car, Alex stood by the driver’s side and gave me a look like I had been away forever. “What took you?”

  “Didn’t you hear the gunshots?”

  “Yeah. I was expecting an Armada of cops to come up at any time, but no on
e did. What the Hell?”

  “Long story, get in, and I’ll tell you.”

  “No, first thing’s first. I have to tell you about the new toys.”

  Alex reached down and pulled the trunk switch. It popped open. I walked around.

  The trunk was now heavy with guns and ammo. It looked like the SHOT gun showroom. There were two MP5 submachine guns, two M4 automatic rifles, and boxes upon boxes of ammo. In the back of the trunk was even a box or two of grenades…stacked atop boxes of ammo. Included was a Thompson submachine gun and two barrels of ammunition.

  “Huh. Well, that’s interesting.” I closed the trunk.

  Alex smiled. “I particularly like that he gave you a Tommy gun.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes. I get it. Considering what just happened, I don’t blame him for the caution … I do blame him for the bad joke.”

  As we pulled out, I explained about the Jamaicans trying to kill us, and how they came prepared with zombies.

  “Zombies?” Packed yelled. He cursed. “I thought this supernatural crap was because of demons and death cults and shit. Now you’re telling me that almost anyone can use this hocus pocus insanity?”

  I shrugged as I made a turn. “What do you want? For the Kingdom of Heaven, many are called, but few are chosen. Hell, however, is open to everyone. There are pearly gates for a reason.”

  “Lovely. Hell has an open borders policy. Can’t they build a wall like everyone else?”

  “Give it time.”

  “So, where are we heading now?”

  “MS-13.”

  Alex said nothing for a moment. I stopped at a sign and looked at him. He wasn’t even surprised. I moved forward again. After a moment, he said, “Well, that tells me who, but not where.”

  I laughed. “Where do you figure?”

  It didn’t take him more than a couple of beats. “Ah. Gotcha. So, Harlem or Long Island.”

  While “Harlem” is generally considered a black neighborhood, that isn’t the extent of it. Technically, that Harlem is West Harlem. That area has had a renaissance, the Apollo Theater, and several strong cultural movements that more or less ended when the Black Panthers came to town. (For the record, the Black Panther political movement came several months after the superhero of the same name. The Marvel character debuted in July 1966, while the Black Panther Party was created that October. In 1969, they were in New York and trying to blow up buildings).

  East Harlem, on the other hand, is Spanish Harlem, simply referred to as “The Barrio.” Even that may not be true in a few years, as the Chinese had started to move there in droves.

  East Harlem is north of the Upper East Side and East 96th Street, up to about East 142nd Street, east of Fifth Avenue to the water. Some people don’t consider it part of Harlem at all—at which point, someone should tell the labels on the buses that read “East Harlem.” As you can tell from its name, neighborhood is predominantly Latino. It’s probably the largest Latino community New York City. Its majority is Puerto Rican, with a large minority of Dominicans, Cubans and Mexican immigrants—legal or not. It absorbed what had once been Italian Harlem.

  So if you’re a tourist in New York, don’t just ask for “Harlem.” You may get lost.

  Another difference between West and East Harlem—as I said, while West Harlem had had the Harlem Renaissance, the Barrio never fared as well. It was plagued with the highest jobless rate in the city, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, drug abuse, homelessness, and an asthma rate five times the national average. Add to that the second-highest concentration of public housing in the United States.

  “How about Long Island? If MS-13 were in the Barrio, the Latin Kings would object. I haven’t heard of any shootouts or assassinations lately.”

  Meanwhile, out on Long Island, there were estimates between one and two thousand thugs. They were out in some of the less savory areas in central Suffolk: Hempstead Station, Central Islip, and the notorious Brentwood. The latter held the most interest for us. Despite the insults hurled at it, Brentwood wasn’t really a slum. It was a range of upper to lower class. It was less about economics in the area, and more about how bad the bad areas really were.

  Due to the geographical and political oddities of New York, Brentwood wasn’t a city. Brentwood is technically a “hamlet” in the Town of Islip in the county of Suffolk.

  Confused yet? So are most of the occupants.

  Way back in the middle of the 19th century, Brentwood was merely a stop on the Long Island Rail Road as it expanded into the heart of the island. Within the decade, it became a “Utopian community” named Modern Times. A decade after that, it was renamed Brentwood after the town in Essex, England.

  Nowadays, it is the home of Pilgrim Psychiatric Center. Fifty-two acres of the psychiatric center was converted into the Brentwood State Park athletic field complex. That is more or less its own joke about insanity and state-backed anything.

  If anyone ever tells you that Long Island is some sort of mythical Whites Only area, smack them. While there was a mix of ethnicity all over the Island, Brentwood alone had a 70% Latino population. They even had a consulate for El Salvador.

  Brentwood was only ten square miles and home to 60,664. Making it not only a good place for a few hundred MS-13 members to live in, but the economic diversity also gave them targets to rob and people to sell to—be it drugs, prostitutes, or sex slaves.

  If Rene Ormeno was going for the “needle in a haystack” method of hiding, Brentwood was one of the easier places to hide.

  Alex finally said, “I presume you’re figuring that, out of our possible suspects, Ormeno’s the best?”

  I nodded. “Maybe. But he’s the easiest to identify, since we know him, and easiest to get to since both the mayor and his deputy should be protected by a ring of bodyguards.”

  “Yeah. For guys who are against gun ownership, they do seem to be surrounded by them.”

  I concurred. I continued, giving Alex the same rationale that I had given D.

  “I don’t disagree. And frankly, I think that the best outcome is that Ormeno is the one who’s after you. Because if the deputy mayor is after you, I can’t imagine how we can touch the guy short of going completely rogue.”

  I gave him a brief look as I made my way to the Cross Island Expressway. “You mean we’re not already?”

  “We’re not completely rogue if the bosses haven’t suspended us.”

  I was about to tell him that he’d seen too many movies when I felt a strong compulsion to turn on the police radio. Don’t even question why. I felt the need so badly, my hand moved almost of its own accord. I went to the wide band scanner.

  The car radio blurted immediately, “Repeat, there is a 187 at,” and rattled off a street address. “Code Purple. Again, 187, Code purple at,” and the address again.

  My foot pressed down on the pedal, and I sped for the exit for the Grand Central Parkway. “Get the bubble gum machine, Alex.”

  He did as I asked, putting the police light on the roof of the car as I shot down the Cross Island. He didn’t even ask what I was doing as I got onto the GCP westbound ramp.

  Almost everyone knows that a 187 is a homicide. Less well known is that a “Code Purple” was radio code for gang activity. The address was in East Harlem. So Alex knew what my first thoughts were.

  Though I didn’t tell him that this was less driven by a gut feeling and more by Divine Guidance. I didn’t know if God personally was guiding my hand, but I would take it.

  Against you, oh Lord, who can stand? Let’s roll.

  Chapter 9

  Into Darkness

  The apartment complex was massive. Insanely huge. A typical block of Manhattan real estate was about 100,000 square feet, or more than two acres.

  This was an apartment complex that filled the entire block and then went up twenty stories. It was an ugly brown brick box that would have fit perfectly in the Soviet Union.

  The address we had gotten over the radio led us to this apartment. The crime
scene was out in front. At least three men were dead on the street. “At least” three because they were in pieces and parts. Given the spatter on the street, they had been thrown out of the apartment building. Since the windows weren’t shattered, they must have been thrown from the roof. Given the tattoos on an arm of a body close to the police tape, the three corpses had been members of the Latin Kings.

  I pulled up to the crime scene tape and stood outside of it to avoid alerting anyone of my presence. We had even disabled the GPS signal from the police car before leaving the station. It would defeat the purpose to announce ourselves.

  Though as soon as I took a deep breath, I knew we were on the right track.

  I could smell Rene Ormeno’s evil. I couldn’t tell if he was still in the area or not, but he’d been there.

  I wandered back to the car and stuck my head in. “Alex, you want to stay in the car, or risk the police placard?”

  He shrugged. “We park ourselves next to the other cop cars, who’ll notice? You’re not going in by yourself. And you’re sure as Hell not taking one of D’s toy guns. Neither of us are wearing coats long enough.”

  I frowned. I hadn’t even considered taking one of D’s automatic weapons. The major problem there would be that this apartment complex would be more overcrowded than a bar offering free beer on Fifth Avenue during Saint Patrick’s Day. Even using my handguns there worried me.

  For those of you out in the gun world who are saying “get frangible rounds!” That’s a no. Frangibles were often given to air marshals so they didn’t depressurize the plane. They’ve often been mistaken for hollow-point rounds. On the one hand, the NYPD, as a rule, didn’t hand out frangible rounds or hollow-points. And D’s collection of guns in our trunk didn’t come with any.

  Alex parked the car, and we entered together. Once we were inside, we clipped our badges to our belts and we suddenly just became two more cops on the scene. The civilians didn’t want to see us and hoped that we didn’t see them. We pretended not to.