Shoot

by Kieran Crowley

  Oh shit.

  Four men in long leather duster coats, hats and beards. Like the ones who had followed me before. Were these the New Minutemen? They moved faster now, two on the sidewalk in front of me and two in the street, flanking me on my left. A classic, L-shaped deployment, so they would not shoot each other. Each was maybe thirty feet away, close enough not to miss but not close enough for me to do anything. They were pros. There was a garbage can and trees near and behind me but nothing big enough to hide behind. The four-foot-high stone wall of the park, ten feet away, blocked escape to my right and there was a sharp drop to the unseen ground on the other side. I knew the sidewalk behind me was open but I wouldn’t get three steps.

  One by one, they racked their pieces, black tactical bastards with what looked like three barrels. Shotguns. Short 12-gauge Bullpups. They had fifteen rounds each, times four. I didn’t need to do the math. It equaled death. I knew I should move fast but I didn’t.

  “The Aryan Purity Nation, I presume? Or is it the New Minutemen? Don’t I get a smoke and a blindfold?”

  “You were warned,” one of the shadowed faces in front of me replied. “Embrace the suck.”

  I remembered the cease-and-desist message on my phone from the New Minutemen. I let go of Skippy’s leash. I decided to go over the wall, a hundred-to-one shot but my only chance at cover.

  “Run, Skippy!”

  He didn’t run. I gave the order again but Skippy, usually so obedient, started advancing on them, snarling.

  “No, dammit, Skippy! Run!”

  The first blast exploded in a horizontal fountain of fire and blinding white sparks fifty feet long. What the fuck? It roared past, singing my right side. Something shattered behind me. I moved involuntarily to the left, away from the wall. All four weapons opened up and I was bathed in thundering sparks. I felt impacts, burning, blinding, yelling at Skippy to run. I couldn’t see him but, in between booms, I heard his ferocious roar. I dove toward his voice. The night was on fire. I couldn’t hear Skippy anymore. I fell and the world went dark, my vision blurred with after-images of the arcing electric flames. My ears were ringing, things flame-red around me. Garbage can, trees, all burning like torches. Still alive. I saw a pale shape and scrambled toward it. Skippy on the ground—not moving. His fur was wet and smoldering.

  NO!

  I howled, picked him up in my arms and staggered toward the park. My legs had just enough strength to propel us onto and over the angled chest-high stone wall.

  76

  The fall knocked the wind out of me but I stumbled around in the dark woods, keeping the wall on my right. I could feel Skippy’s heart beating against my chest, fast, but he wouldn’t respond to my whispered questions. I could smell blood and burned hair. I put him down, used my shirt to wipe his bloody fur and saw more blood come from his abdomen. I wadded my shirt against the wound and hugged him tight to stop the flow. I pulled out my phone, hit a number, and ran. A walkway led to the right, out of the park. I stopped and peeked around the wall but saw only a few cars. The New Minutemen were not there. I sprinted east. Skippy’s heartbeat was slowing down. I ran faster. Why was I still alive? Jane answered the phone. I yelled at her to stay there, that Skippy had been shot and she had to save him.

  When I arrived at the animal hospital, Jane and a male assistant were waiting at the door.

  In the light, there was so much red blood. I yelled that it was Skippy’s blood not mine but she kept looking at me and Skippy and crying.

  “Jane, he has a wound in the side. He’s losing blood. They were firing shotguns that blasted fire and probably buckshot. You have to operate now.”

  “Yes, we’ve got him. Andy called the police.”

  I carried Skippy to the rear surgery area and placed him on a stainless steel table. I was shaking with rage and fear. There was a mirror on one wall, with a bloody, dirty zombie in it. I looked undead. Sections of my hair and my eyebrows had been burned off. My pants were scorched and blackened. I was smeared with Skippy’s blood and dirt. I had maybe a dozen random cuts. From what? Ricochets? Why am I still alive? Skippy and I should be blown apart. They couldn’t be such bad shots. I went into an exam room and reached for paper towels to wipe off the blood.

  I stopped.

  A better idea occurred to me. I called Sparky and told him what had happened.

  “I’m not cleaning up until you take pictures. Get your ass over here.”

  When I returned to the operating room, they were working on Skippy.

  “Stay over there,” Jane warned, calmly. “You’re filthy. Skippy’s got a perforated wound through one side and out the other. His signs are dropping. We’re warming up a unit of blood for transfusion but not until I can stop his bleeding. Okay, oxygen mask? Good… Starting anesthesia now, Andy?”

  “Yes, I’m keeping it light,” he said.

  I called Izzy and left a message, pacing nervously, as they worked on Skippy. I remembered my paramedic training, ABC. First, clear the Airway, then check Breathing and then Circulation.

  I called the paper and got an editor on the overnight City Desk, told her what had happened and that my photographer was on the way. She gave me a rewrite reporter, who took my notes and said they’d have it on the web in half an hour.

  Jane hosed Skippy off and then painted him with antiseptic before cutting him open. His belly was full of dark blood. I clenched my fists. This was my fault.

  “A lot of blood,” Jane said. “Towels, please. Looks like the spleen was hit. Andy set up that unit of blood, please.” She reached inside. “The spleen is ruptured, through and through,” Jane concluded. “I’m clipping off the blood supply and then I’ll take the spleen. Let’s hope it missed the intestines. Okay, tied off. I’m running the bowel now… It’s okay, no damage. Andy we need more towels and irrigation—lots of dirt and hair in here. Okay, better… I’m removing the spleen. More irrigation, please. Clean that up, okay? Okay, finish up… I’m getting the stapler to close up both sides. Okay one… wow, big hole… okay, there. Two. Okay, paint it again… now gauze… yes… Can you help me with the belly wrap bandage? He’s heavy… Great… okay, now the Ace Bandages… one more… great. Heart sounds good.” She stroked Skippy’s neck. “Let’s get the Ringer’s and antibiotic IVs going, please.”

  Skippy was still alive. We should both be dead. Jane washed up and came over.

  “Skippy is going to be fine,” she told me.

  I let out a breath.

  “He has to stay here on IVs for three days. He’ll be weak but in a few days he’ll be walking. In a month, I expect he’ll be his old self again.”

  “Can I touch him?”

  “Yes, of course. If you wash your hands.”

  I washed my hands, apologized to Skippy, even though he was unconscious, and gently stroked his head. His eyes were mostly closed, his mouth agape. His teeth were red. So was his fur.

  “Why is there blood on his muzzle?”

  “There’s no injury there but it’s probably his own blood.”

  What if it wasn’t?

  “Maybe. Can you preserve a good sample for Izzy?”

  “Okay. You think he got a piece of one of those bastards?”

  “Yeah. He wouldn’t leave me,” I said. “I ordered him to run but he attacked.”

  “Shepherd, this has to stop,” Jane said, hugging me. “Please. Can all this ugliness end?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to tell her that I would do my best to finish it soon but I knew that was not a good answer. Fortunately, Sparky arrived to take pictures and Izzy arrived and saved me with questions of his own.

  77

  “They’re called ‘Dragon Breath’ shells, custom ammo, a new one on me,” Izzy explained. Izzy, Phil and I were at the scene of the shooting, the rising sun just visible. “They were firing 12-gauge combo-rounds with phosphorous and single .69 caliber balls—just like the ones used in the murders—but these are lead, not silver. Maybe they ran out of money?”


  “Or I’m just not worth the expensive kind,” I suggested. “They weren’t trying to kill me—a blindfolded baby could have blown me away with those cannons.”

  “They were teaching you a lesson,” Izzy agreed. “’Cause you don’t listen so good.”

  “Somebody up there likes me,” I told him.

  “God?”

  “No. Their boss. But why?”

  “You’re the luckiest fucking guy in New York, Shepherd,” Phil said. “Thank every god you can think of, kiss your girlfriend and your dog—and go forth and sin no more.”

  “This wasn’t luck,” I told him. “Somebody wants me to know it wasn’t luck.”

  There were dozens of shotgun shell casings amid the charred, chipped cobblestones. My cuts came from fragments of granite. The Crime Scene Investigators were bagging and tagging the shells, which would be checked for fingerprints. I knew these guys weren’t dumb enough to leave evidence on shell casings.

  The fire department had already been there to extinguish three burning trees and one garbage can. There were large holes in several tree trunks and a bus stop sign.

  “They shot all around you,” Izzy continued. “Amazing you’re still in one piece. You should look like Chesterfield, but worse. What was it like, being inside that firestorm?”

  It was like being in Sparky’s Fourth of July fireworks explosions, but not so pretty.

  “The motherfuckers shot Skippy,” I said. “Leaving me alive is the last fucking mistake they’ll ever make.”

  “You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” Izzy laughed. “So, you think the pooch bit one of them?”

  “You’ve got the blood sample Jane took from his muzzle—you tell me.”

  “Still waiting on that,” Phil said. “If we get lucky, it might match someone in the DNA database.”

  “That would be nice,” I agreed. “Either way, they go down.”

  “You do know murder is still against the law, right?”

  Sparky came over, having finished shooting stills and video of the scene. He whispered in my ear. I whispered back. We did this for a bit, until Izzy demanded to know what the hell we were talking about.

  “Sparky is a good citizen,” I told Izzy. “He would like to report that a nearby apartment building has a video surveillance camera that recorded the attack. He thought you might be interested.”

  Sparky pointed the way and Izzy and Phil went off to check it out. Meanwhile, Sparky showed me the security footage, which he had emailed to himself. From across Fifth Avenue, there was a night-vision image of Skippy and me being followed by the New Minutemen and surrounded. When the pyrotechnics began it was spectacular: the white-hot light from the muzzle flashes temporarily wiped out the resolution of the video. My stomach and my fists clenched. There was no sound but you could see my mouth moving, ordering Skippy to run, and then Skippy flying at one of the shooters, going for his throat. The guy went down but his partner swung his bullpup toward Skippy—who was swallowed up in an avalanche of silver fire.

  “Motherfuckers,” I spat.

  I saw myself dive into the sea of sparks and then the video went darker for a bit, as the bastards flipped their selector switches to access the other half of their ammo. At that point, they had to have fired more than thirty shots. I watched myself scoop up Skippy and wobble like a drunk to the wall and go over. The guy on the right front, the one who had spoken to me, had his hand up and his crew didn’t fire at my back, an easy target. They let me live.

  Sparky sent me a copy of the footage. Izzy and Phil returned with the impounded security equipment as we were watching the playback again.

  “That’s going to go viral,” Sparky predicted. “It’s awesome.”

  “But you can’t see faces,” Izzy pointed out. “I can’t even recognize you—too far away. Unless they were morons and left their prints on the ejected shells, we’re back to the mystery blood from the pooch.”

  I checked my phone and saw our new front-page story— TEA PARTY ANIMALS ATTACK PRESS REPORTER— with details of the shooting. There was a photo of me, looking like I was nuked, and a sleeping Skippy, all bandaged up. His photo was much bigger than mine, of course, since tabloid readers care more about pets than people.

  As we watched, Izzy made a call, talked, listened, cursed and hung up.

  “No joy on the mystery blood,” Phil announced. “Contaminated. Lab says they detected components of human DNA, animal DNA, insect DNA and avian DNA. Nothing clean enough for a database hit. Game over.”

  “Avian DNA?” I asked.

  “Pigeons, probably,” Izzy said.

  “Don’t let on that the DNA from Skippy is no good,” I said.

  “You want the bad guys to sweat?” Izzy asked. “So they make a mistake, do something crazy?”

  “Right,” I agreed. “I’m going to do a story about the DNA and the footage and say you know who they are and you’re about to bust them.”

  “Don’t use my name on that bullshit.”

  “He wants them to try again,” Phil told Izzy.

  “What? He’s not that crazy. You’re not that crazy, are you, Shepherd?”

  “You bet your ass he is.”

  78

  I went back to check on Skippy, who was still asleep but doing fine. Jane told me she was taking me home and we would be back later. At Jane’s, I showered and we grabbed breakfast. Jane crashed on her bed but I had work to do and guzzled some coffee. My head was fuzzy. I needed sleep but I kept trying to think about what I was mulling over before the New Minutemen rattled my brains. The Revolutionary War flag used as wadding for the musket balls, maybe? I had no luck trying to trace whoever bought that at auction. A massive right-wing conspiracy? Yeah, that was it. The totally paranoid, insane-ass thought that the Tea Party Animal killings were planned not days or weeks ahead but months or years in advance. Ridiculous.

  But why not? Billionaires and businessmen planned projects involving many people and events years ahead of time. Why wouldn’t they evince the same, careful advance approach with the perfect murder? Or, rather, the perfect mass murders. Cops looking for one or a few bad guys would miss the big picture, the corporate sweep of many noncriminal individual and multiple routine actions—divided up into discrete tasks. The handyman, who had a convenient secret criminal record that opened him to blackmail, installed the clips to hold the custom reinvented firearms— which were conceived and manufactured by someone else. Another person to hack the computer surveillance system, Bryce, and maybe as many as five others to use the weapons and hide them in the toilets. Possibly others to collect the evidence later and destroy it? But they had to wait because the suites were still guarded crime scenes. There had to be at least one additional person to operate the drone and maybe obtain explosives. And, of course, my friends the New Minutemen—the enforcers—blew them away. The Tea Party Animals weren’t a guy or a small group—they were a whole company. The Supreme Court, as Walter Cantor said, has ruled that corporations are people. In this case, an efficient covert team unaware of the existence of the others outside their roles—their strings being pulled by… who? This was beginning to sound very familiar. The Minuteman who spoke to me. Probably from observation, he knew I didn’t smoke. He said, “Embrace the suck,” a very common phrase among my colleagues in my former line of work. Definitely ex-military. Nice to see American business giving my fellow vets jobs.

  I used Jane’s computer to do another search on old flags but I still couldn’t track down any anonymous buyers at auctions. A plan was forming in my head and I used Google Earth to check out sites on the Hudson River that looked promising.

  I hadn’t had a chance to check on my favorite concierge, so I googled Bryce Martha Draper. Not too much. One hit had a reference to someone of that name as a master’s degree candidate in political science at New York University. No photo. A debate at some fancy prep school six years earlier had a photo of a group with someone who might have been Bryce. Too small to tell. Further down there was a link to
the D.A.R.’s website, the historically right-wing Daughters of the American Revolution. I clicked and there was Bryce, a red, white and blue blonde in the junior auxiliary. She had an ancestor who fought in the War of Independence, somebody named Draper who helped finance the rebels. Very interesting. I printed the page. I thought a moment and went to the Knickerbocker Convention Center website and checked their Staff pages. I found Bryce under Concierge Staff, along with a familiar face—the other staffer who was with her in Chesterfield’s room on the night of the murders. His name was Jonathan Cooper Morris, from New Jersey. I clicked back to the D.A.R. page and used their search engine to plug in Jonathan’s name. Bingo. He was also in the student auxiliary, with a rebel ancestor. I printed the page. It took me half an hour to locate four other staffers at the hotel from the northeast who were in the D.A.R. and had notable revolutionary predecessors. They all worked at the same hotel. This wasn’t a coincidence—this was a star-spangled firing squad.

  “Smile now, motherfuckers!”

  I called Izzy and told him.

  “Motherfuckers!”

  “That’s exactly what I said.”

  “You crazy asshole, you just split this shit wide open.”

  “Maybe. These are blue-blooded suspects but I don’t think they’re the mastermind, or the banker, do you?”

  “Ask me in forty-eight hours,” Izzy told me. “Look, don’t print their names or any of this D.A.R. shit until we get them, okay? Otherwise, they’ll be farts in the wind. Thanks, Shepherd. Hey, man, now your bullshit story about us being ready to bust the bad guys is actually true.”

  I asked him for a quote, as a source. He gave it to me and hung up so he could go back to work. I was too jazzed to sleep. I banged out a new story on Jane’s computer, proofed it and then called Mel at the paper to tell him my new piece. I dialed but he wasn’t in. It was only nine in the morning, too early for Mel. I called his cell and he answered after multiple rings, obviously asleep. I told him I was excited because I had come up with five new suspects. Mel mumbled that was great. I told him about the D.A.R. connection but that we couldn’t use it yet, or their names.