The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset)

by Doug Richardson

  “Let’s go!” Mo barked to the driver.

  With military efficiency, the van’s door closed and its gears engaged. For the next half-block the van drove without front or rear lights. At the first side street, it made an effortless right turn and vanished into the night. Inside a linear mile, at a preordained spot, the Chevy van was parked, emptied of all weaponry, and set ablaze with the leftover diesel, to be discovered later as just another burned-out automotive carcass which littered so many ghetto landscapes.

  Lucky couldn’t put a clock on how long the gunfire had lasted. Or the weapon used. Of if he’d even been struck, considering the level of pain to which he’d already become accustomed. In his violent career he’d never experienced such a shocking volley. And the usual slow-motion gunfight recall was utterly non-existent. It was more like a bomb had been uncorked rather than a machine gun unleashed on the pizza joint. Big Otis and the sheet glass window had appeared to cave in unison. Whatever had sent Lucky to the floor—be it alarm or reflex—hadn’t mattered beyond the self-preserving result. Through the splinters and dust and microscopic glass, he’d barely glimpsed Julius’s snap reaction.

  And then the damned scene had gone dark.

  Absolutely and temporarily opaque. Somewhere, somehow, the machine gun assault had ceased and the vehicle that delivered the assailants had hurried off into the night. This left Lucky crawling. Not into the street where the air might have been more breathable. Instead, he shuffled on the route he imagined Julius had escaped. How far? Lucky hadn’t a trace of an idea. At any moment, he fully expected to clamor over the strip mall king’s bloody bullet-pocked corpse.

  Lucky snaked into the kitchen, maneuvering underneath the hinged countertop. A battery-operated emergency light sputtered over the rear exit. Through the staccato light, Lucky spied the two pizza makers, motionless and bleeding out from a multitude of life-ending punctures. The pizza oven was open and spilling its seven hundred degrees, the pies inside burnt and smoking.

  Lucky stood, crossed to the phone on the wall, listened for a tone and dialed 911. He left the phone to dangle knowing full well the operator would scramble both fire and police to the traced location. Then he stumbled for the already opened rear door.

  The alley behind Pizza Wing was worse than dim. Before choosing a direction, Lucky was forced to wait for his eyes to adjust. He heard a distant bottle skitter, kicked off a human foot. He snapped his head left and began his run before he could even read the ground beneath him.

  You’re alive, okay? Now get after it.

  The it was a man. Julius Colón. No doubt he’d been in foot chases with cops before. What self-respecting thug hadn’t begun his criminal career hot-footing from some Johnny Law bastard?

  Only Lucky wasn’t on the job. He was on suspension, warrantless and with zero authority. What good was phoning for backup when the off-book deputy was moonlighting as a one-man death squad?

  You’re on your own, idiot. Try not to wind up dead.

  The alley ended at East Myrrh Street. Residential. A customary Compton landscape of tiny stucco hovels fenced in by corroding, three-foot chain link fringed a roadway so clogged by parked cars it was reduced to a single lane. Nearly one hundred yards away there was a lone streetlamp casting a dull, yellow apron of shine. Through the pale light Lucky saw a running man—Julius—favoring his left leg. Whatever injury he’d sustained appeared not to slow him. He ran like a running back with an extra-moving part. A double-hitch. And Lucky, his lungs already aching for oxygen, was barely keeping pace.

  Experience had taught Lucky to conserve. Arms tight to the body, shoulders switched on relax. Keep the target in sight. Let the suspect bust something pulmonary. Blow a shoelace. That’s when a bad guy would choose shelter over speed. Corner. Try and fight his way out against a cop armed with experience and a gun…

  …and usually an entire PD to back him up.

  Julius kept to his line. Due east. He ran without deviation or, from Lucky’s still far-off perspective, even a look behind to see who or what was pursuing him. His pumping arms worked overtime to make up for whatever ailed.

  “SLOW DOWN!” Lucky found himself shouting.

  The waste of precious air lost out to his own frustration. Like Julius should retard his pace? If Lucky could, he would have laughed at himself. The pair had just survived a machine gun attack by who the hell knows. As if that shared experience was something they could halt the chase and build on?

  Lucky found himself wishing for air support—a helicopter—loudly hacking at the thickening atmosphere with its elevating rotors. He thought of Gonzo and pictured her point of view from behind the chopper’s stick. Apart from barking at Lucky to call off his illegal pursuit, she would have mapped the scene and projected a route. As darkness loomed ahead of Lucky, a grid formed in his head. It was the plot of Compton he’d required his trainee memorize. He himself hadn’t studied it, but had learned it by testing her—Shia, his over-educated trainee.

  East Myrrh blunted into the Long Beach Freeway. Beyond the freeway was one of the broader tributaries of the concrete-hulled LA River. Wherever Julius was headed, this was his backyard. For Lucky to keep pressing was at his own increased peril.

  Screw it, decided Lucky.

  I’ll cut ’im down when he’s on the fence.

  The street concluded at a sixty-foot slant of scrub and sand. An eight-foot chain-link safety fence cheaply screened with green vinyl slats was all that defended the freeway from intruders. To Lucky, scaling yet another fence with his screaming shoulder felt like a game-breaker. If he was going to finish off Julius, he was better off doing it with a grain-heavy slug to the man’s spine.

  Lucky eased off his run and dropped to one knee. With no chance to recover his breath, he’d need a steady hand and a trigger finger with more squeeze than spasm. His ears filled with the sound of speeding cars as they pushed the freeway air. He could see Julius cleanly ahead. The chugging silhouette didn’t stop to size up the fence. He leapt and expertly hooked an arm over the top. His climb was going to be fast, and his fall onto the other side would be hidden from Lucky’s view. It was now or not at all.

  Reaching back into his waistband, Lucky felt for his .45. With eight loads in the mag and one in the pipe, he’d have nine squeezes to stop the runner.

  But that supposed he had a pistol to aim.

  Lucky’s hand, so practiced at unsheathing his weapon, releasing the safety, and dropping sights on a target, came up empty. There was no gun in his waistline holster. Somewhere between the Pizza Wing and the patch of asphalt where he knelt, the pistol had loosened and fallen away without him having the slightest inkling. There followed an instinctive three-sixty-degree search in place, as Lucky prayed to find the .45 within quick reach.

  No gun was anywhere in sight.

  The scream of a southbound motorcycle split the night air. Some kind of Japanese bike. Rice rockets, the Chippies called them. It turned Lucky’s attention back toward the freeway and that fence he’d have to overcome if he was going to keep with the chase. Julius, for sure, had expanded the space between himself and Lucky. His advantage was becoming more obvious with every one of his pursuer’s heaving breaths.

  Last chance, dumbass.

  If Lucky didn’t continue, he reckoned his chances of meeting up with Julius without a phalanx of Crip bodyguards or an entire law firm present would be cut to nil.

  So move your feet.

  Lucky leaned and pushed off against the pavement, charging into another run, leaving any remnant of his being a sheriff’s deputy behind. His will was vengeance. And what lay ahead was no more and no less than a street fight leading to loss or ultimate resolution.

  To the death.

  It was like being a teenager again. Flipping over fences. The churning of dirt and loose asphalt underfoot. Beating his feet as fast as he could to grind out a clean escape sucked Julius right back. He was lighter back then, minus thirty pounds of muscle. And without a hitch in one of his motors. A run
ning back, his Pop Warner football coach had lectured, had nine engines: two legs; his glutes; a muscled core; a pair of arms; the heart; and most importantly, his brain. But one of Julius’s motors had been scored by one of Mo’s high-velocity bullets. Back right thigh. Millimeters from severing his hamstring.

  Evading capture by cop wasn’t an exact science. Not in the hood. The proliferation of PD helicopters had made it all the more difficult. Yet there were some timeworn exits the cagey Blaxican could employ. One was what some bangers called the “Freeway Run.” Taking a dead reckoning for the Long Beach Freeway—or Seven-One-Oh as the westside locals called it—a fast footer could flip over the fence, climb the bank and dodge speeding cars across eight lanes of north and southbound traffic. No cop, from LA Sheriffs to LAPD, would risk causing a multicar accident resulting in injury, death, and most relevantly, countless lawsuits. But for a fearless gutter punk, playing chicken with a bunch of commuters was worth the risk.

  Part two of the Freeway Run—as an evasion tactic—would involve circumventing the eye in the sky—aka the helicopters. Beyond the Long Beach Freeway stretched one of the LA River’s original arteries. After a second fence hop, an escapee only needed to find a way into the channel and look for the nearest spillway connecting back to the Compton storm drains. Most evacuation spouts had long lost their protective grills to corrosion or vandalism. Fetid and forbidding as the environs might be, the shafts made for a near certain escape.

  Injury notwithstanding, Julius felt confident he could shake Lucky. It was the deputy’s posse that caused him worry. With every stride, his ears were tuned for sirens. Perhaps the CHP had been alerted and, once he attempted to cross freeway traffic, they’d overrun him in their super-charged Ford Explorers. Julius crested the slope shy of the road’s shoulder. With hard looks both north and south, he spotted not a single spinning red light.

  His worry shifted to the helicopters. Julius chided himself for having to stop for even a breath. He forced an efficient turn, using the freeway’s elevation to scan the horizon for any oncoming chopper. He sighted one bird, but it was beating out a tight circle around a city block roughly two miles to the west. Centered underneath the helicopter’s sweep, the O.G. spied a city-block-sized structure fire with flames reaching three or four stories. Julius could practically count the fire engines. Four alarms. He was even able to make out the arcs of pressurized water streaming into the pyre.

  That’s my fucking farm.

  The realization sucked the wind from his chest. The blaze was at the old aviation tire factory. By the abundance of smoke, Julius reckoned his cannabis plantation was a total loss. All the planning. All the investment. Gone. Never to be recovered.

  Julius’s fixation was shaken by the sound of rattling chain link. His pursuer was below. That Reaper. Alone and with no visible backup. Still pressing the chase.

  Goddamn him.

  Julius stepped backward onto the road’s shoulder. He spun and returned to running mode, fueled as much by anger as the pain of survival. The crease behind his thigh, bleeding down his calf and into his right trainer, was less a sting than an oncoming Charlie horse. Would his leg cramp and fail before he could clear all eight lanes? If so, the chase would end with him a red smear inside parallel rails of tire marks. Turning around wasn’t an option. Julius made himself a snap promise: should he survive the scramble across the freeway, there would be one hell of a reckoning.

  Traffic screamed past. The average speeds near seventy-five miles per hour. But due to the hour, the wide spaces between cars beckoned.

  It’s Friday, Julius remembered halfway across the southbound stripes. Fubar and Mickeys—his favorite nightclubs—would be slamming with man flesh. Something to live for?

  Absofuckinglutely.

  A box truck in the far left lane flashed its high beams to warn Julius, who only surged ahead. The miss was so close that Julius heard the truck’s brakes lock before a howl of skidding rubber. There followed a rush of turbulence, the prevailing wind reversed by the drifting truck. Julius didn’t see the sidewalls collapsing under the box truck’s weight. He was already advancing over the concrete meridian when the truck landed on its aluminum side. Had the opportunist in him not seen a massive gap in northbound traffic, Julius might have glanced back. All cramping aside, he pushed himself over the last four lanes and butt-slid himself down the opposite dirt slope.

  Behind, he heard the squealing tires of cars, all growing ever distant the further he lowered himself toward the flood channel. Whatever mayhem he had left in his wake, he hoped it would slow the deputy. Crush him, even. Perhaps the cop was already dead on impact. Julius could only pray as much to the god of his own criminal imagination.

  And for a lick of good fortune.

  Bad as the future looked, Julius painted it with a silver lining in the hair’s breadth of digression he’d allowed. Ahead was the climb down to the dry bed of the LA River and a chance to find a dirty spillway. Then he could disappear for a time. Reconstitute and recalculate. Live to kill Lucky on another day.

  50

  Lucky caught not a glimpse of Julius or his gimpy sprint across the 710’s eight lanes. While cresting the slope to the freeway’s shoulder, he’d slowed at the high-pitched shock of shrieking tires. A box truck wiped past, tipping like it had been jiu-jitsu’d to the pavement. Rooster tails of sparks arced as the hobbled truck scraped to a stop. Cars swerved. Three more locked up their wheels, drifting or spinning like metallic pinwheels. Fenders met bumpers met car doors, but impacts were well less than severe as the four out-of-control passenger vehicles careened off each other like carnival bumper cars.

  The box truck was Lucky’s shifting concern. His reflexive worry was that the driver could have been ejected and crushed by his own rig. No sooner had he switched angles than he spied the truck driver sprightly clearing himself from the horizontal cab and grabbing his cellphone.

  The multi-car accident stalled traffic in both directions—the northbound lanes because of man’s predisposition to rubberneck at carnage. Lucky seized the opportunity and ran full tilt without obstruction or incident.

  His shoulder wound burned from the salt in his sweat. His left side was sticky and leaking with blood dripping to his fingertips. He stained the asphalt with a DNA map of his own one-cop crime wave.

  Lucky slipped off the freeway and plunged himself back into the darkness. He slid down to another stinking chain-link fence—his third that night—toed and grasped his way over, landing on the top edge of the concrete channel. His eyes were already adjusted. Up and down the riverbed he scanned, locating neither sign nor sound of Julius.

  A rusty access ladder was bolted to the wall of the channel forty yards south. Lucky eased himself onto the first rung to see if it would take his weight. He then descended, the last five feet a straight drop to a chalky floor. When his sneakers landed, the slap echoed along the squared culvert, announcing he’d touched down.

  Lucky knew suspects would sometimes infiltrate themselves up and into the spillways, temporarily hiding out inside the storm drains. The ambient night light reflected off the sun-bleached concrete. Lucky swerved his view from north back to south, barely regarding the lone ribbon of water working down the center. It was like a slow-moving brook, no more than two-feet wide and four-inches deep. Wasted water, meandering its way to the Port of Long Beach. It made a slightly perceptible babbling sound. Peaceful even. Any moment, it would be drowned out by the sounds of sirens—emergency services bearing down on the accident scene on the freeway above.

  The stripe of water was blackish muck. Grossly contaminated with all matter of street residue. Yet in the dark gray of those early morning hours, something in Lucky wanted to lie in the stream, cool himself, and allow it to soothe all his aches.

  Then Lucky heard it.

  A scrape. A shoe, perhaps? South of him. Perhaps from under the Alondra Street bridge which carried cars back and forth from Compton to the incorporated City of Paramount.

  Lucky jogg
ed closer. His eyes scoured the landscape, seeking any manner of weapon. A stick. A shorn length of rusty rebar. A concrete chunk. Yet nothing availed. The shadow cast by the span was nearly impenetrable to the eye. Lucky thought his pupils must have been dilated to the size of opioid saucers in their demand to gather the threadbare available light. He slowed, easing into the black overcast from the overpass, begging his eyes to adjust.

  The massive, paved culverts snaked throughout the county. And once inside, the constructs all looked the same save for the angles. The city boulevards and bridges crossing the channels served as natural cover and shade. During dry times, entire tent and cardboard communities of homeless would spring up practically overnight.

  Lucky noted the sound of dribbling water. High and right. He guessed there must be a storm drain outflow. He could barely make out the circle carved into the slab wall. Like a darker hole cut inside an even darker hole—black inside of blacker. If Julius was crouched inside and could make out Lucky’s form, he could quickly land upon the deputy, laying Lucky out in a single airborne tackle. Knocked to the concrete, maybe unconscious, Lucky would be defenseless.

  Lucky eased his progress, straining an ear for echoes of Julius working himself deeper into the drain. With the overpass buffeting nearly all freeway sounds, that singular trickle of water was all that registered.

  A chill worked its way through Lucky. There was a veritable absence of sound. Lucky heard his own inhalation followed by the emptying of air from his spent lungs. And little more.

  Then landed the rope—and an unexpected cinching around Lucky’s unprotected neck.

  Julius had heard the ringing as Lucky descended the rusty ladder, as well as the slap of the deputy’s shoes landing on the channel floor. If he could have continued his run, he might have been able to create more distance. His right leg, though, had cramped and practically quit. The swelling from the bullet wound had gripped his hamstring. The limb was seizing, close even to paralysis if Julius didn’t stop pushing for more yards. He found cover under the darkness provided by the overhead span, then heard that trickle of water coming from the spillway. Julius ran his fingers along the concrete wall, hoping to find both moisture and the bottom of the outlet. What his fingers found instead was a rope. Dangling. Nylon. With plastic filaments wound into the kind of strand utilized to fly red, white and blue flags above used car lots. It was shredded from age.