Random Victim

by Michael A. Black

  Leal held up his badge. Hart began to reach in her purse, but the security guard backed away. They descended the steps, trying to survey the crowd. Baldy came over to them first, as they managed to squeeze into an empty space that was almost too small for them. Hart felt herself pressed against Leal’s side. She could feel his weapon pressing into her ribs, and she moved her purse around to the front.

  “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.

  “Information,” Leal said, flashing his badge again. He took out the copy of Martin Walker’s driver’s license photo. “Ever seen this guy in here?”

  The bartender leaned over and Hart thought that his head looked as shiny as a cue ball.

  “Hard to say,” baldy said. “What did he do?”

  Leal ignored his question. “How about your partner?”

  Baldy shrugged and moved away, going over to whisper to the blond girl who was mixing a B and B. She held up her fingers and smiled. One of the waitresses glanced across at them, then looked away. After setting the glass on a tray, the blond girl walked over. Her teeth were going to need some dental work soon, Hart noticed.

  “Hi. Whatcha need?” Her name tag said Crystal.

  Leal tapped the picture on the bar and asked the same question.

  She studied the picture and handed it back.

  “You know, I mighta seen him in here, but not recently,” she said.

  “When was the last time?” Leal asked.

  She shrugged. “We get so many people.”

  “What was he like?” Hart asked. “Did he hang with anybody?”

  Crystal shrugged again and wiped her nose.

  “I remember he was a lousy tipper,” she said. “What’s he done, anyway?”

  “We just want to talk to him,” Leal said, putting the picture back in his pocket.

  “Yeah, right,” Crystal said. “With two cops asking for him?” She tossed her head defiantly and walked back to the center of the bar.

  They tried to survey the crowd again from this vantage point, but the noise and dim lighting made it next to impossible. Hart turned and placed her mouth next to Leal’s right ear.

  “Maybe showing Walker the matchbook wasn’t such a good idea,” she said, hoping he could understand her over the beat-driven cacophony. The disc jockey had put on a remix version of “I’m So Excited.”

  Leal nodded and started to say something. Instead, he jerked his head toward the door. As they walked away he leaned close and said, “I wish I would’ve known Brice was gonna see it our way, or I might not have done it.” They started up the stairs. “Anyway, let’s check some of the other clubs and come back. They may know more than they’re telling.”

  Games & Faces seemed geared toward a younger crowd. A couple of punk rockers eyed them suspiciously as they walked in, and Leal snorted. The club was designed with a domination motif, the small dance floor a gesticulating mass of postadolescent bodies in black, punctuated with gleaming metal studs. Gigantic video screens played music videos in frenzied cuts.

  “Come on,” Leal said, after the bartender laughed and shook his head after seeing Walker’s picture. “We’re about as inconspicuous as two nuns at a Madonna concert.”

  “Yeah, I doubt he would have gotten in here without a lip stud,” Hart said.

  After checking three more clubs with similar results, Hart was ready to quit. She just knew her hair would smell totally like cigarette smoke, and the thought of washing it again before she went to sleep didn’t gel with her plans of an early morning run. So she wasn’t happy when Leal said he wanted to go back to the Kit Kat.

  “There was something about that female bartender,” he said. “The way she looked at us.”

  “Okay,” she said, not wanting him to know how she really felt. It was time to suck it up, she thought. Learn from the best.

  “If that doesn’t work, maybe we can tag up with a couple of vice boys from CPD and lean on the street people a little,” he said.

  A group of women stood in front of the adult bookstore adjacent to the Kit Kat. Hart eyed them warily. Several of them wore opulent miniskirts and tight halter tops leaving little to the imagination. One of the women, a dark-skinned girl with large breasts and skinny legs, called out as they passed.

  “Looking for a little action, Officers?”

  The other girls laughed hysterically.

  “No problem making us, huh?” Hart said.

  Leal waved back at the hookers and smiled.

  “The wagon’s on the way, ladies,” he said, pulling Hart toward them. “Say, you girls mind helping us out a bit?” He took the picture of Martin Walker out and showed it to them. “Seen this dude around here lately?”

  “Shit,” the hooker said. “This boy’s so ugly he have to pay for it.”

  “Pay me double,” another one said, looking over her shoulder.

  A Lincoln town car pulled up and slowed as the passenger-side window lowered into the door. “Hey, good-looking,” the driver called.

  The girls waved him away and stared at Leal and Hart.

  The picture got quickly passed around and returned.

  “Let’s go take us a smoke break, girlfriend,” one of the white hookers said, sounding like she was doing her best to emulate a black accent.

  “I do know this dude,” the first hooker said, turning to go. “Look like one of Bobbi’s boys.”

  “Hey,” Leal said, holding up a bill. “Who’s that?”

  The girl did a quick about-face and snatched the bill. “Bobbi work that club there now,” she said, pointing to the Kit Kat.

  “She in the life?” asked Leal.

  The hooker nodded. “Bobbi into a whole ’nother kind of kink. But lately, she pretty much dealing in chemical transactions, if you get my drift.”

  Leal nodded. “Can you point her out to us?”

  The hooker’s face scrunched up.

  “Don’t want to be narcing on nobody,” she said. “I got a reputation to uphold.” She smiled.

  Leal smiled back. He held up another bill.

  “Maybe we can do it on the sly?” he said.

  She grabbed the bill and tucked it into her Wonderbra.

  “You know, I guess I could use a trip to the ladies’ room,” she said.

  As they went inside, the security guy stopped the hooker at the door.

  “Get your motherfuckin’ hands off me, bitch,” she said.

  He looked about ready to slap her and throw her out the door when Leal said, “She’s with us.”

  The security guard raised his hands in an I-give-up gesture, and took a step back.

  “Thank you,” the hooker said in a smug voice, and went down the steps. She paused in the darkness, her voice barely audible between the squeals from the crowd and the pervasive beat. “Let me go in and look around. If I see her, I’ll lean over and talk to her and put my hand on her like this.” She touched Hart on the shoulder, then said, “Damn, girl, you strong. Come by and see me, honey, and I’ll show you some good times.” Hart recoiled slightly at the thought and suddenness of being touched, and the hooker laughed. The song ended and the disc jockey said something special, really special, was coming up.

  The hooker circled the floor, taking the long route to the ladies’ room. They watched her progress as she went inside, and after coming out, she stopped, pausing to take out a cigarette. Through the haze Hart saw the hooker stop at the bar and lean between two patrons, her hand resting on the shoulder of a slender white chick with dark shoulder-length hair feathered back to just above her collar. Her excessive eye makeup gave an almost grotesque exaggeration to her slim face.

  “The broad in the black leather,” Leal said, moving down the stairs. “Let’s go down and check her out.”

  Hart followed, trying to watch as the hooker grabbed a book of matches off the counter, lit her cigarette, and then looked up. She melted into the crowd as Leal and Hart drew closer. The blond bartender seemed to see them coming, as she was refilling a customer’s drink
. She leaned forward and said something, and Hart saw the brunette’s extreme outlined eyes seek them out. They pushed past a couple of stumbling drunks who were all hands and apologies.

  “I think Blondie tipped her off to us,” Leal said, shoving past the drunks.

  Hart saw Bobbi pick up her shoulder-strap purse and slip off the stool, her sequined stockings sweeping together as she headed for the back of the room.

  “She’s booking,” Leal said.

  They watched as Bobbi pushed open the washroom door.

  “What do you want to do?” Hart asked.

  “I wonder if there’s a window in the ladies’ room.”

  She shrugged. “Want me to check?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Ask her to step outside and we’ll question her about Walker. It’d be nice to set something up so we could catch him with a hooker or some drugs.”

  Hart smiled, thinking that maybe they had a chance to catch that break they needed. She pushed past a few people to the ladies’ room.

  “I’ll guard the door,” she heard Leal say. “Be careful in there.”

  I can handle it, she thought.

  Leal stopped just outside the door as Hart went in.

  Surprisingly, the room was fairly spacious as club washrooms went, and empty, too. Hart looked at the rear wall and saw a partially open window and thought, Oh, shit. But the window was pretty high off the floor, and Hart just couldn’t see Bobbi risking her tight leather dress to scurry up the wall and belly out of a window. She decided to check the stalls.

  Hart paused at the sinks to take out her badge. Then she bent at the waist and looked under the three stalls, but saw no feet. She checked the doorknob of a small closet on the opposite wall and found it locked.

  Things aren’t always what they seem, she thought and pushed open the first stall door.

  Empty.

  Giving the middle door a shove, she saw that one was empty, too.

  The third one’s the charm, she thought, and pushed the door. It was locked. Peering between the space between the frame and the door, Hart saw black leather, sequined stockings, and black patent-leather pumps resting on the horseshoe toilet seat.

  “Come on out, Bobbi,” Hart said. “We need to talk.”

  “What the fuck do you want, bitch?” came the husky whisper.

  Hart was in no mood for a smart-ass comment from a smart-ass whore.

  “Police,” she said, grabbing the stall door and giving it a shove. The door flew backward, swishing past Bobbi’s hunched up knees. Hart held up her badge. “Let’s step outside for a minute.”

  Bobbi stepped lightly off the toilet with a dancer’s grace, and strolled to the sinks. She leaned over and looked in the mirror, one hand digging in her big black purse. Hart was having trouble stuffing the badge case back in her purse, wishing she had pants with pockets big enough, when the little alarm inside her head started to go off.

  I’d better not let her go digging in there, she thought.

  “Hey, keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Bobbi smirked and removed a lipstick tube, holding it up.

  Hart relaxed slightly.

  “So what do you want?” Bobbi asked, slipping the gold top off the tube.

  A remix version of “I Want to Dance With Somebody” began blaring over the sound system. Hart moved her head at the sudden noise, and when she looked back in front she saw Bobbi whirling toward her. Hart raised her arm to block what she thought was just a punch, not seeing the hooking blade protruding from the top of the lipstick tube. The blade sliced down the underside of Hart’s left arm. She felt a cutting sensation, then the pain and gushing of blood. Bobbi tore Hart’s purse away with a sudden quick jerking motion. Hart backed away, but Bobbi followed, grabbing at her with long, black fingernails. Hart tried to snatch away the blade, but only got a slice across her hand. Bobbi slashed outward, obviously aiming for the throat, but hitting Hart’s left shoulder and back, ripping and tearing her blouse as she tried to run for the door.

  Summoning all her strength, Hart grabbed Bobbi’s right hand, the one with the blade, held it in both of hers, and yelled, “Frank, help!”

  Leal, who had positioned himself outside the ladies’ room door to prevent anyone else from going in, heard what he thought was a scream mixed in with the lyrics of the Whitney Houston song that was blasting from the speakers. He pushed open the door and the sight of the bloody struggle sent a shock up his spine.

  Inside in seconds Leal seized the raven-colored hair only to have it come off in his hand, exposing a shortly cropped head covered by a murky hairnet. Tossing the wig down, he slammed into them, the force sending everyone crashing against the stall assembly. Leal grabbed Bobbi’s right wrist, his fingers meeting around the slimness of the bones, and together with Hart, managed to twist the bladed lipstick tube loose. It fell to the floor, rolling over Leal’s arm. His gaze followed it for only seconds until an elbow smashed into his temple. Long black talons raked over his face. Leal backed away slightly, but it was enough to loosen his grasp and Bobbi wormed free of them. He saw Hart slip to the floor, a bloody mess, and half a second later a sequined leg snapped up to catch him in the crotch. Leal stumbled forward, his balls on fire, and braced, half a second later, for the inevitable gut-wrenching nausea that usually accompanies a deftly delivered groin blow. The black fingernails flashed for his eyes, but suddenly fell short, and Leal saw Hart’s bloody arms looped around Bobbi’s legs, sending her plopping down on the hard tile floor.

  Waving off the nausea, Leal gritted his teeth and drove his right fist into Bobbi’s jaw as she was getting up. The blow staggered her, and her wobbly two-step bought her within range again. Leal put his legs behind a body blow, catching the leather dress at the midpoint. Bobbi sunk to her knees, and Leal pivoted, slamming the close-cropped head into the nearest porcelain sink. Then, using his superior weight, he forced Bobbi to the floor and reached for his cuffs, snapping them over the slender wrists as he twisted them behind her back.

  “Get my purse,” Hart said. She looked groggy, out of it.

  Leal shook off his own dazed fuzziness and picked up the lipstick blade. As he straightened up he saw the short leather skirt riding up over Bobbi’s hips as she writhed on the floor, twisting on her side. Through the sequined panty hose Leal could see some sort of black padded sheath, and spilling from the side of it was the unmistakable bulge of a dick and balls.

  “Fucking freak,” he said, giving Bobbi a kick in the gut.

  He moved to Hart, kneeling beside her as he fished his cell phone out of his inside pocket. The front of her blouse was in shreds, and he could see her breasts and the lacy edges of her bra. She was bleeding so much he couldn’t tell how bad the wounds were. But they were bad enough, he knew, as he put an arm around her and dialed *999 on his cell.

  What the hell’s the address here? he wondered as he waited for the emergency operator to connect.

  “Is it bad?” Hart asked.

  Shock. He had to keep her from going into shock. “Easy, Ollie. It’ll be all right. You’re gonna be okay.”

  She murmured something.

  The door pushed open just as the operator came on the line. The hulking security guard stuck his face inside, his mouth gaping.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “We need an ambulance,” Leal said. “Tell them we have an officer down.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Lost In the System

  The paramedic holding the IV bag was staring down at the front of Hart’s torn blouse. Leal reached over and pulled the white sheet up over her breasts and the guy looked away. The other paramedic pierced a vein on her right forearm and wiped away the trickle of blood as he taped the needle in place.

  “No problem finding a vein on her,” he said.

  “Where you taking her?” Leal asked.

  “Augustana’s the closest.”

  “That place good?” Leal asked.

  The paramedic
nodded.

  “She your wife or girlfriend, sir?” the first guy asked as he fastened the glucose bag to the metal clip and adjusted the flow meter.

  “She’s my partner,” Leal said. He held up his badge and realized he still had Hart’s purse slung over his shoulder. He lowered the purse to his hand.

  “So you gonna ride over with us?”

  Leal turned to the uniformed Chicago copper who was standing by the open rear doors.

  “Can you guys keep the asshole for me while I see to my partner?”

  The cop nodded. Behind him Leal could see Bobbi being shoved none too gently into the back of a squad car.

  “We’ll take him over to eighteen,” the cop said. “I assume you’ll want to go felony, right?”

  “Fuck, yeah,” Leal said. He looked over at Hart again.

  “Okay, Sarge, we’ll put him in the lockup and the dicks will do a follow-up to the violent crime report.”

  “Did I mention that we originally wanted to talk to her…” Leal stopped and shook his head. He was tired, and feeling it. “…him, in connection with a homicide case we’re working?”

  “No shit? He a suspect?”

  Leal shook his head. “Maybe one of his johns is. So can you keep him on ice for me till tomorrow?”

  “Not a problem,” the copper said. “We’ll run his prints, get a rap sheet, have everything for you by the morning when you come back.”

  Leal nodded a thanks. “Ah, no phone calls?”

  “Lost in the system,” the copper said, grinning.

  “You’ll have to ride up front if you want to go with us,” the paramedic said.

  Leal moved closer to Hart and said, “Ollie, I’m going to take the unmarked over to the ER. I’ll be right behind you, okay?”

  “Okay, Sarge,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  He smiled and got out of the ambulance. The siren wailed and the heavy vehicle moved off with an array of flashing lights.

  Leal badged his way past the security guards in the emergency room and went into the space where they had Hart. He squeezed her hand slightly and sat down next to her.

  “How you doing, kid?”

  “I’ve had better days,” she said, holding up her bandaged arm. The blood was already beginning to seep through the gauze. “Does it look very bad?”