by Stone Kiss
They exchanged firearms. Decker hefted the gun. “Not too heavy.”
“No need for overkill. Standard nine-millimeter Parabellum and twenty-two LR. With all the customization, it cost me about fifteen hundred bucks. I’ll probably have to lose it after this is all over. Damn shame.” He stowed the kid’s gun in his backpack and took out his own customized handgun, complete with scope and silencer. “We do them; then you can make your move through the back entrance.”
Decker studied the faces in the scope, feeling his heart drop. Two lanky boys, one maybe a couple of inches taller than the other, both of them holding that gaping-mouth confused expression commonly stamped on teenage males. Their cheeks still held a smattering of adolescent pimples. His brain flashed to his own sons. “They’re kids. Eighteen tops.”
“I was that age once,” Donatti pointed out.
A very convincing argument, but Decker wasn’t ready to make the jump. “I’m a police officer. I can’t shoot them without warning.”
“Oh, that’s clever,” Donatti mocked. “Why don’t you go all the way and paint a bull’s-eye on your forehead?”
“I can’t shoot them without giving them warning first.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Donatti, I’ll announce myself. If they don’t drop immediately, then we can—”
“If we give them warning, they’ll shoot, then scatter. Then we’ll have a real problem.”
“I’m not going to argue this—”
“You’re an idiot.”
“You’re repeating yourself.” Decker remained firm. “Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Donatti picked up a pinecone-shaped piece of concrete and hurled it, the cement whizzing by the bigger of the two boys. As it hit a box and broke into smaller pieces, both of the teens spun around, the taller one raising his gun in Decker’s direction. He never stood a chance. Donatti picked them off in two clean shots— zzzzpt, zzzzpt. They walked a foot or two, then dropped—plop, plop. The shots were so smooth that there wasn’t any discernible blood spray. Donatti must have been using hollow points—the kind of bullets that bang around in the skull, turning the entire brain to pulp.
Decker glared at him, his eyes burning with anger.
“I gave them warning.” Donatti was expressionless. “Self-defense. Now I’ll cover you while you get your brother out.”
“That means I walk out with my back to you. I just saw you murder two kids.”
“If you don’t leave now, you won’t make it.” Donatti adjusted his scope, squatting as still as a stone frog. “I’ll wait a few minutes. If you don’t come back by then, I’ll just assume that we’ve parted ways.”
There was no time for contemplation.
“I’m keeping this.” Decker held up the gun. “Go, Jon. I’ll follow you. Be careful!”
“I don’t know where I’m going.”
“Just move!”
Once they had made it down the stairs and onto the ground, Decker, looking through the scope, scanned the area. Then he grabbed Jonathan’s hand. Using the IR lens for visibility, he twisted and turned around aisles and aisles of tall shelving, around boxes and machinery—gingerly and quietly. He dragged Jonathan along as he negotiated the path to the back. Time took on a surreal quality. It was without parameters like hours spent in a casino; in reality, it took only a few minutes to reach the back door.
Pushing it open, stepping over the threshold and then out into a wet and chilly freedom. The rain was coming down in cold, big drops, the ground beneath them slick and filled with mud holes, forcing them to tread with caution. Still, they jogged and didn’t stop until they were at the van. Jonathan’s hands were shaking as he pulled out the keys.
Decker opened the driver’s door. “Go find a phone booth and call up the State Police. Then call up NYPD and ask for Detective Mick Novack from the two-eight. Don’t tell him any details, just to get his butt out here. Don’t come back here. The less you’re involved, the better.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I can’t leave him alone.”
Jonathan stared at him. “You can’t be serious. Didn’t you just tell me this wasn’t worth getting killed for?”
“I don’t intend on getting killed—”
“You’re relying on Donatti for protection?”
“If I don’t go back, Jonathan, your brother-in-law is dead!”
Jonathan looked away. “My wife’s obligation may be toward her brother. My obligation is with my brother. You’ve got a wife and children. You’ve got to leave.”
“I can’t do that.”
Jonathan regarded him with tears in his eyes. “And how do I comfort Rina at the shiva?” He hugged him tightly. “You don’t know what’s going on. He could be setting you up.”
“Perfectly true. But if I don’t return, he’ll think I froze. I can’t let that maniac have that kind of superiority over me.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Then you should be concerned. Insanity is genetic.” He patted the driver’s seat. “In.”
Jonathan paused, then climbed into a damp, cold seat. Though clammy, it was still better than squatting, taut with terror. He regarded his brother. “I still have the gun you gave me.”
“I have protection, so you keep it.” Decker shut the van’s door. “With God’s help, you won’t need it. Go!”
Jonathan placed the key into the ignition. It coughed, it sputtered, it choked, but eventually the pistons kicked in. The motor was breathing, albeit asthmatically.
“Drive carefully,” Decker cautioned.
“You be careful,” Jonathan cautioned back.
When the taillights were dots in the distance, Decker started a gentle jog back toward the barn, gun in hand.
Armed and dangerous, he was a force with which to be reckoned.
35
The barren night reminded Decker of funerals, specifically of cops murdered while doing the job. Those left behind—the grieving parents, the prostrate spouses, and the bewildered children—had a sameness to their wretched faces like the sameness to the color black. In Judaism, Torah is light and light is God. Hell wasn’t fire and brimstone and devils and torture. Hell was an abyss without sensation, without end.
Slashes of rain slapped Decker’s face. Without the protection of the plastic bags, his shoes and socks had become soaked, but that was of little consequence. There were other things on his mind— Chaim… Donatti… Merrin… Rina and the children. As he neared the back door, he felt adrenaline kick in, his senses heighten.
Opening the door a fraction of an inch. Playing mental games to ward off that terrifying fear of a gun’s bore suddenly popping into his face. Only his heartbeat and breathing for company.
A few more inches, then Decker made the commitment. He slipped inside the warehouse and took refuge, hiding behind a stack of three-foot square boxes. Once again, surrounded by phantasmagoric nothingness: by violence lurking behind an eerie stillness. His inhalations were deep. He was sweating profusely, and salt bathed his eyes. He wiped them with the back of his gloves, still wet from rain. He peeked over the edge of the cardboard stack and peered through the Walther’s scope, but saw only aisle after aisle of cartons and boxes. Nowhere could he spy Donatti or the platform on which they had been squatting. With no specific landmarks, he was disoriented. He only knew that he was in the rear of the warehouse.
With nothing to go on, he figured he might as well go for the action and head toward the lit room in front. Hopefully, Donatti—if he did spot him—would look before he shot.
Provided he wasn’t after Decker.
Jonathan’s words: He could be setting you up.
Donatti had had ample opportunity to pop him, and had yet to exercise the option. But Chris was a pro and picked his scenery like a stage director choosing his set designs. The opportunity had never been better: a headfirst, out-of-town cop trying to rescue his brother-in-law, getting shot in the cross fire.
Again he
scoped the place through the infrared lens, scanning the aisles for anything in motion.
Everything appeared inert.
He plotted a path, one that had lots of big cartons and crates to hide behind with plenty of escape routes. Of course, if he could hide behind walls of cardboard, so could a sniper. But maybe they were too busy guarding the door and watching their own asses to worry about an itinerant cop.
He inched out from his current position and gave a last-minute check to his surroundings. As quickly and quietly as his shoes would allow—he had to tiptoe because his sneakers squeaked—he started toward the other side of the warehouse.
First attempt, he hotfooted it about fifty feet before taking shelter behind a pallet.
Second try, he slithered out another hundred feet, then crouched behind a forklift to reevaluate.
Third time, he found a niche in back of a six-foot-high pallet.
His face was hot and wet, and large drops of sweat fell off his nose. His armpits were soaked; his clothes smelled rancid. His breathing was fast and shallow. His rib cage hurt from tension and his oxygen-starved inhalations.
A piece of concrete whizzed by his ear, landing on the ground and breaking into little tippy-tappy noises. Decker whipped around but saw nothing.
Donatti.
But where had it come from?
Decker sucked up oxygen from the frigid air and tried to get a fix on the direction of the projectile. He zigzagged in and out of merchandise, until another stone whizzed by his head.
He veered to the left, then scoped out the new area.
He still didn’t see any platform or staircase.
Darting from aisle to aisle, from box to box and carton to carton. He paused a moment, leaning against a pallet marked COMPUTER DESK AND HUTCH. FRAGILE. Sweat was cleaning out his system. The adrenaline rush was subsiding, fatigue taking its place.
Catching his breath…
Closing his eyes…
Just a moment…
His hand dropping to his side…
The barrel of the gun pointing to the ground…
Just a few more moments.
His eyes snapped open when he heard the voice.
“Freeze, motherfucker!”
Freeze, Decker thought.
Hit men don’t give warning.
But cops say “freeze.”
And good cops usually don’t say “freeze, motherfucker” without provocation. So this was probably a cop and not a nice one.
All this clicked inside Decker’s brain within a split second of decision-making. He dropped and rolled, while shooting in the direction of the voice, the semiautomatic spitting out muzzled fire because of the silencer—pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft. He scrambled to his feet, but remained stooped behind a crate, his lungs stinging as he panted, his gasping so loud it almost drowned out the moans. Slowly, he rose, but his shakiness forced him to lean against a wooden beam. Unsteady with pinpricks of starlight dancing in his brain, he tried to equalize his balance.
The moaning had stopped.
Decker peeked out.
Of sizable girth, the man had fallen with his head back, one thick arm across a padded chest, the other arm extended open and lying over the concrete. The torso had twisted so it was resting on the hip, the stomach spilling onto the floor. The legs were crossed over one another. The face was hard to make out, but the build certainly could have been Merrin’s.
Decker inched out from his hiding space.
Donatti was standing over the contorted body, eyes cast downward, arms crossed with a pistol in the left hand. His voice was a whisper. “See what happens when you give warning. He should have just taken you out.”
“Did you…” Decker’s heart was beating so fast it threatened to break his sternum. He was still trying to suck up air. “Did you do it or did I?”
Donatti looked up. “Take a bow.”
“Jesus!” Decker felt his head go light. “Fuck!”
“Buck up,” Donatti told him. “Surely, you’re not a virgin.”
“Unfortunately no…” He swallowed hard, staring at the face. Not Merrin, but definitely a cop. “Who’s left?”
“Just the two pups guarding Chaim’s office. I don’t know who’s actually in the office, because even I can’t see through walls.”
“Any more of these?”
“These? You mean cops?”
Decker nodded.
“Not that I know.” Donatti smiled. “I knew you’d come back.”
“Gotta keep an eye on you, Chris.”
“That’s bullshit. Your ego refused to allow me to be the one to save your brother-in-law.”
“Can we go?”
With expert precision, Donatti led Decker through the maze of crates, cases, parcels, and boxes. In minutes, they were within fifty feet of the office, light leaking out from under the door. No one was in view.
Where were the guards?
Donatti stepped back and pulled Decker into the shadows, his eyes in constant motion. They were out of sight, in back of a stack of wooden crates. “I don’t like this.”
“Where are the kids?”
“Don’t know.”
“What do you mean—”
“I don’t know. They were here a second ago.”
“They’re not here now. Where did they go? In the office?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I’m not a fucking mind reader. Shut up!”
“Fuck you!” Decker snapped back. His eyes darted from side to side. He looked through the scope of his gun, sweeping the lens across the area.
First there was nothing; then an eye blink of motion flitted out from the corner of his visual field. Reacting before the thought fully registered, he yanked Donatti down and jerked him hard to the left as bullets ripped through a stack of cardboard boxes containing television sets. It set off an explosion of glass and metal, a cloudburst of thousands of slivers and shards that flew through the air and rained down onto their heads.
Deadly silence followed the eruption.
The moments tapped by, punctuated by the rapping of the rain on the roof and the windowsills. Decker lay facedown on the floor, but Donatti was on his haunches, ready to spring. Both of them remained fixed in position, their eyes locked on one another in tacit communication. Decker saw Chris hold up a finger.
The minutes went by… two… three… four…
With everyone hidden from view, other senses became heightened. Decker saw Chris close his eyes. Both of them were professional enough to know not to make the first move.
When in doubt, wait it out.
Five… six… seven.
It didn’t even take that long. That was the way it was with amateurs: overeager because the pups just had to inspect their handiwork. They had to see the damage, to gloat about it. And with glass crunching beneath their shoes, they might as well have announced their arrival over a PA system. Though Donatti’s eyes remained closed, his lips broke into a smile, widening as the noise increased in volume.
The lids snapped open and he patted air, indicating for Decker to stay down. Then he ticked off the seconds with five splayed fingers.
Five, then four… three… two… one.
A quick peek from around the boxes, then two shots fired.
And that was that.
Decker couldn’t see them, but he heard them drop, the horrible crack of bone slamming against the cement.
Donatti whispered, “You can get up.”
Taking great care, Decker managed to balance on his legs, still squatting, still waiting. His hands were crisscrossed with small cuts, his sneakers and rain jacket sparkled like glitter. The darkness abruptly faded as a wedge of yellowed light cast its shape on the floor. Crunching accompanied the thuds of footsteps along with the sound of something being dragged. Heavy breathing could be heard.
“Caldwell?” A pause. “Caldwell, are you there?”
Donatti and Decker mouthed the word simultaneously: “Merrin.”
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“Caldwel—”
The smashing underfoot stopped. Donatti shifted his position until the police chief came into view. “He’s looking at the bodies.” He turned to Decker. “He’s got your brother-in-law.”
“What do you mean?”
Donatti took his gun and put it at his temple. “I’ll take him down if you want.” A smile. “Or do you want to warn him?”
Decker’s brain was moving too fast to digest his thoughts. “I’m going to try to talk him down.” He got to his feet. “Stay back, all right?”
Chris shrugged indifference.
“Just be there to back me.”
Another apathetic shrug.
“What does that mean?”
“Time’s ticking, Decker. Either do it or let me handle it.”
Decker stepped out and aimed his weapon. “Hey, Virgil.”
Merrin jumped around, one hand holding a Smith & Wesson .32 caliber pistol with its bore buried in Chaim’s temple, the other hand clamped over Lieber’s mouth, muting his sobs and wails. Decker’s eye went from Chaim’s face, over the teenage corpses, then came back to the chief. “Sorry about your boys.”
“S’right. I got others to take their places.” A piggish grin was plastered across his ugly face. “It’s mighty nice for you to show up. Makes things easier all around.”
“I’m very tired,” Decker said. “Drop the gun—”
“You can’t be serious. Matter of fact, I was going to ask you to do that very thing.”
“Merrin, my nine millimeter is pointed at your chest. Your piece is pointed at Lieber’s head. That means I have the advantage.”
“You shoot me; I shoot him.”
“Then shoot him,” Decker retorted.
Merrin’s smile sagged, his face registering pure shock.
“So,” Decker told him, “either drop the gun or I’ll shoot you.”
“You’re bluffing—”
“Try me, Chief.”
Without warning, Merrin’s lips turned upward into a venal grin. “I suggest you drop the gun, Lieutenant, because I do reckon that the odds just shone in my favor.” His eyes went past Decker’s head, focusing on something behind him.