Rising Phoenix

by Kyle Mills

  “You first this time,” Beamon said, taking a position to the right of the door. Hobart gave a short nod, grabbed the knob, and threw the door open.

  Beamon tensed and pressed himself harder against the wall, expecting a flurry of ballets to come bursting into the room. Nothing. He peered out into the alley as Hobart moved silently through the doorway. It was empty except for a cat lying in the middle of a discarded toilet lid. The animal looked at them through bored, city-bred eyes, oblivious to the sound of gunfire echoing eerily off the weathered brick walls of the alley.

  Hobart signaled “all clear” and began running lightly through the puddle-strewn alley. Beamon loped after him.

  They broke out onto a wider, though equally deserted, road, crossing it quickly and slipping into another narrow back street.

  They crossed three more streets that way, putting a reasonable distance between them and what Beamon guessed was a group of Luis Colombar’s attack dogs. Despite their slow, careful pace, Beamon felt as though his heart was going to dislodge itself from his chest and skitter off to find a more sedentary home. The image was almost enough to make him laugh.

  Hobart, who was about twenty-five yards ahead, slowed to a walk and then turned. Beamon stopped short, keeping the distance between them.

  “Sounds like your boys are cleaning things up, Mark,” Hobart said in a conversational tone. The acoustics of the alley made it sound like he was only a few feet away.

  Beamon cocked his head to the side, listening intently. He hadn’t noticed that the gunfire had slowed almost to nonexistence. It sounded like microwave popcorn right before you pulled the bag out of the oven.

  “Looks like our truce is about over,” Hobart said.

  Beamon slowly brought his gun to waist level and stuffed it in the front of his pants. He hoped that the nonaggressive gesture would keep things from getting out of hand until he had time to think the situation through.

  “Looks that way.”

  He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his jacket and lit it, surprised that his hands didn’t shake. “Why’d you do it, John?”

  “Why do you think?” Hobart said, following Beamon’s lead and stuffing his .45 in his belt.

  Beamon relaxed a little. “God and country?”

  Hobart laughed. “No, I guess I just wanted to see if I could.”

  Beamon exhaled, watching the slight breeze dissolve the cigarette smoke.

  “So how do you want to play it, Mark?”

  “I guess I’d like you to throw that pistol on the ground and put your hands on top of your head.”

  Hobart shook his head. “I don’t think so. Tell you what. Why don’t you just turn around and walk away. No one would blame you for letting me get away, with all that shit going on.”

  Beamon took another drag from his cigarette. “I’d blame myself.”

  Hobart shook his head again, looking at the ground. “Then I’ll ask you again. How do you want to play it?”

  Beamon looked around him. The alley was only about ten feet across—barely wide enough to drive a car through. There were a few windows in the brick buildings that lined the little street, but they were all at least six feet off the ground and covered with chicken wire. A Dumpster overflowed with boxes of rotting vegetables eight feet in front of him and three feet to the side.

  There weren’t a hell of a lot of choices. A running gunfight was out of the question—too athletic. Hobart moved with the speed and grace of a college track star and he didn’t even look winded from their cross-town run. Beamon’s knees felt like they were full of gravel, and his heart was still considering vacating his chest cavity.

  The Dumpster was interesting. He could dive behind it, leaving Hobart out in the open. But what would be the point of that? Hobart was only about thirty feet from the mouth of the alley and would be long gone by the time Beamon finished pulling the lettuce out of his ears.

  That didn’t leave much.

  Beamon dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it with the toe of his shoe. Hobart was standing with his arms hanging loosely at his sides. Beamon hoped he didn’t feel as relaxed as he looked.

  “If you won’t surrender, I guess we’ll just have to end it now.”

  The bend in Hobart’s arm tightened slightly, bringing his right hand an inch closer to his pistol. “Come on, Mark, why do this? Look at you.”

  Beamon glanced down at his protruding stomach and then to his yellowed fingertips. Finally he looked back up at Hobart. “I remember you being a real trick shot with a rifle, John. But handguns were always more my territory.”

  “I’ve been practicing.”

  Beamon hoped to hell that wasn’t true. “One more chance, John.”

  Hobart stared back at him. His eyes were as lifeless as glass. Windows to his soul.

  Hobart was the first to move, bringing his hand up in a lightning-quick motion. Beamon’s breath caught as he grabbed for his own gun. He was slower, as he knew he would be, and he saw the flash of Hobart’s pistol a split second before he himself fired.

  Beamon felt a flare of pain in his chest and then numbness as he watched Hobart jerk backwards and fall onto his back.

  Beamon dropped his gun and desperately clawed open his shirt to examine what he had already decided was a fatal wound.

  Nothing. Not a scratch. He marveled at the power of the human mind to play tricks as he quickly bent to retrieve his gun.

  Hobart was still alive, though most of the flesh between his right pectoral and shoulder was missing.

  “Let go of the gun, John,” Beamon shouted as he slowly advanced. Hobart was still clinging loosely to the .45, though he didn’t look like he had the strength to pull the back of his hand off the pavement. He rocked his head toward Beamon, causing a thin line of blood to flow from his mouth and make swirling patterns in the puddle he was lying in.

  He shook his head weakly and began to slowly raise his gun hand.

  Beamon stopped short and aimed his .357 directly at Hobart’s heart. “Stop it, John. That wound doesn’t look fatal. Let me get you to a hospital.”

  “Won’t need one,” Hobart croaked.

  Beamon estimated that he had two more seconds before it was aimed directly at his chest.”

  “Drop the fucking gun, John.”

  There was no more time. Beamon squeezed the trigger and watched his gun and John Hobart buck simultaneously. Hobart’s hand dropped back to the cobblestones, still clutching the pistol.

  “Mark! Jesus, are you all right?”

  Beamon continued unsteadily up the middle of the street, his gun dangling from his hand. Laura ran up to him and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Come over here and sit down.”

  She led him to the sidewalk and sat him down against the wall of an empty auto parts building.

  “What happened, Mark. Where’s Hobart?” she asked, crouching down beside him.

  “Dead.”

  “Did the blast get him?”

  “Nope. I did.”

  Beamon tilted his face toward the sky as a light mist started. He still couldn’t believe he was going to walk away from this. “So what’s the situation?”

  Laura sat down next to him. “Looks like we got almost all of them. A couple probably slipped through the cracks—took off when the tide started to turn.”

  “Any casualties on our side?”

  “Bobby didn’t make it. You probably know that.”

  Beamon nodded.

  “Other than that, we had a guy catch some shrapnel in his leg—nothing serious. Oh, and another guy ran through a glass door. Broken nose and a few cuts. Overall, we were lucky.”

  Beamon looked over at her. She was wearing fatigues, a bullet-proof vest and a metal helmet with a face shield. He began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Beamon patted her on the knee. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you look ridiculous.”

  Laura grabbed his hand and slapped it back down on his thigh.

  “I�
��m sorry Laura, I can’t help it,” Beamon said, trying to stifle his laughter.

  She stood up and put her hands on her hips, starting him laughing even louder. Her boots almost reached her knees.

  “You know, I don’t have to take this, Mark. You work for me.”

  Alejandro Perez squeezed himself through the window and onto the roof of the abandoned North Baltimore row home. The distant sound of gunfire had nearly stopped, reduced to an occasional pop carried by the cold wind.

  Perez pulled a pair of compact binoculars out of his breast pocket and peered down the street toward the billowing smoke that he knew was coming from what was left of Samuel’s Theatrical Supply. He sighed quietly as he watched a body-armored FBI man drag the corpse of one of Luis Colombar’s enforcers to a lengthening line of similar bodies lying motionless in the middle of the street.

  Perez had been on his way to the airport when the call had come. Colombar had managed to discover where and when the FBI would attempt to apprehend Hobart and was sending a hit team on the next flight to Baltimore. Perez was to meet them at the airport and wait with them until the appointed hour.

  It had been another serious error in judgment. Colombar had indebted himself to two very powerful and very ruthless men in order to get the likely location of Hobart’s capture. And for what? To kill a man who could have been taken so much more easily in jail. Perez could not even confirm that Hobart had been killed, though it seemed unlikely that he would have survived a blast that had been powerful enough to rip the front off the store.

  Frustrated, Perez slipped the binoculars back in his jacket and turned to the open window he had come through. He would wait to confirm Hobart’s death before getting on a plane back to Colombia. If Hobart had survived, it might be wise to wait a few days before leaving. Give Colombar some time to cool off.

  34

  Houston, Texas,

  March 15

  “Can’t tell you how happy I am to be back,” Beamon said.

  Laura Vilechi grunted from behind a smoking grill. When Mark had invited her to barbecue by the pool she hadn’t actually thought she would be doing the cooking herself.

  Beamon was flopped over a lawn chair that looked too small for him, sipping a drink with an umbrella in it. It was a Scotch, but he had decided when he’d pulled the tarp off the pool that everyone should have an umbrella, no matter what they were drinking. It had taken no small effort on Laura’s part to convince him that it was impossible to drink a beer with an umbrella stuck in the neck of the bottle.

  “How’re those steaks coming—I’d like mine bloody. Really, really rare.”

  “You’ll get it the way I make it.”

  Beamon jumped out of his chair as the sound of the doorbell floated out to the pool. “I’ll get it.”

  Laura watched him disappear through the sliding glass door and turned the grill up on his steak.

  Beamon reappeared in less than a minute with a package under his arm. “UPS guy.”

  “What’d you get?”

  “Dunno.” He tore open the box and pulled out a beautiful gray pinstripe suit. Laura came from around the grill, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Nice,” she commented, opening the jacket and looking at the label. “Hugo Boss? Geez, this is probably a three-thousand-dollar suit.”

  Beamon took her word for it and shuffled through the tissue paper, finally finding a small envelope. He pulled out the card. The message was written in a flowery but masculine scrawl.

  Please accept this as a small token of my gratitude. Have your tailor bill me for any alterations.

  Anthony DiPrizzio

  Beamon laughed until tears streamed down his face.

  “What is it? Who’s it from?” Laura asked.

  Beamon handed her the note. “A gift from Anthony DiPrizzio. Thanking me for putting him back in business.” Saying it out loud got him chuckling again. “They should put this one in the dictionary as the definition of irony.”

  Laura frowned, apparently not fully appreciating the humor.

  “Don’t be mad, Laura. I’m sure your gift’s on its way.”

  Beamon picked up the phone sitting next to him and hit the speed dialer for the JEH Building. “Tommy’s gonna love this.”

  “Tom Sherman, please,” he said to an unfamiliar operator. Sherman’s secretary picked up. “Hey, darlin’. Is Tommy around?”

  “Hi Mark. No I think he’s in his car. Let me patch you through.” There was an audible click and pause, then Sherman picked up.

  “Hey Tommy! I got a story you’re gonna love. DiPrizzio just sent me a three-thousand-dollar suit as a gift for putting him back in business! Hell probably start paying his taxes if we keep helping him out like this.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “You still there?” Beamon asked, shaking the phone.

  “Yeah. Sorry, Mark. I just got some bad news.”

  Beamon stood and walked over to the pool, sitting down and dangling his legs in the cool water. “What?”

  “We’ve just gotten reports of narcotics poisonings in San Francisco and Atlanta.”

  “Bullshit! Hobart’s organization’s going on without him?”

  “I don’t think so. The poisons were household items—nothing sophisticated. I don’t think it’s organized.”

  “They probably won’t be too tough to catch, Tommy. Get ’em and make an example out of ’em. That’ll put a stop to it.” He wasn’t as sure as he was forcing himself to sound.

  “I don’t suppose that I can convince you to come back and head up the investigation?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

  The sun had completely dropped behind the horizon, and the automatic lights by the pool switched on. Laura walked over and sat next to him, dropping her feet in the pool. She was holding a long fork with a charred steak on the end. Part of it was still on fire.

  “Looks like my steak’s done, Tommy. Gotta go. And hey, good luck.”

  1

  A tragic heart attack at the tender young age of fifteen and a half,Jennifer Davis thought. That’s what the headlines would say tomorrow.

  She stood up on her pedals, but had to sit down again when the back wheel of her mountain bike lost traction. Less than halfway up the last climb of the race, her lungs already felt like they were full of hot tar. Worse, she could hear the unmistakable crunch of tires closing in on her from behind.

  Jennifer glanced back over her shoulder, ignoring the flaring colors of the sunset as the light filtered through the Phoenix smog, and focused on the face of the rider behind her.

  The good news was that he looked like he was in bad shape. His mouth was wide open and despite the dry cold of the desert, the sweat was literally streaming off his nose.

  The bad news was that she felt like he looked.

  The angle of the hill eased off a bit and Jennifer stood up again. This time her tire held and she was able to accelerate slightly, struggling to stay out front.

  The panting behind her grew louder as the rider began to close the distance between them. Jennifer grudgingly eased her bike right to allow a lane for him to pass, and then dropped her head and pedaled with everything she had.

  About twenty-five yards from the crest of the hill, when he was only inches behind, he gave up. She heard a gasped obscenity and the unmistakable click of gears as he downshifted.

  Jennifer remained standing, in case it was a trick or he got a second wind, but when she looked back again, he was off his bike, pushing it slowly up the hill.

  At the top of the climb Jennifer leaned forward and rested her arms against her handlebars. A small but enthusiastic crowd lined the narrow trail, and she coasted carefully through them.

  She could see her parents threading their way through the throng as she passed under the checkered banner that announced the finish line. When her father jogged up alongside her, she draped an arm across his shoulders and used him as a
crutch as she jumped off her bike and slid to the ground.

  “Great job, Jen! I thought that guy was going to get you on the hill!” She closed her eyes and listened as her father picked up her bike and rolled it off the track.

  “Honey. Are you all right?”

  Jennifer opened her eyes and looked into the plump face of her mother hovering over her. “Tine, Mom. No problem.” She turned to her father. “How’d I do, Dad?”

  “Fourth place, looks like to me. Just out of the money.”

  Jennifer let out a low groan as she stood and began pushing her way through the crowd, shaking various hands and stopping briefly to talk and laugh with friends and other racers.

  “We’ve got a surprise for you, honey,” her father said as they broke free of the crowd and headed for the parking lot. Jennifer slowed and then stopped. Her father just wasn’t the no-specific-occasion gift giving type. Surprises were usually a bad thing.

  Her eyes followed his outstretched index finger to a white Ford Explorer in the parking lot. Three people stood next to it. Two of the three were waving.

  “You didn’t.”

  “What? The Taylors have really been looking forward to seeing you race.”

  Her mother smiled. “They really have, honey.”

  The Taylors had lived two doors down from them for as long as Jennifer could remember. And for as long as she could remember, they and her parents had been conspiring to get her together with Billy, the Taylor’s football-playing, cheerleader-chasing, Budweiser swilling, moron of a son.

  As they neared the parking lot, Mrs. Taylor rushed up to Jennifer with her arms flung wide. She thought better of the big hug she had undoubtedly been planning when she saw the amount of mud caked on Jennifer’s jersey. Instead, she adjusted an imaginary flaw in her rather tall hair and opted for a distant peck on the cheek. “Wow, that was really impressive, Jennifer. Very exciting.” She turned to her semicatatonic son. “Wasn’t it, Billy.” He snapped out of his stupor long enough to generate a weak smile.

  There was a short lull in the conversation while everyone waited to see if he would actually speak. When it became obvious that he wouldn’t, her father said, “We thought we’d go out and grab some dinner before we drive back to Flagstaff. What do you think, Jen?”