by Mike Knowles
When Miles and the violin security-detail disappeared, I called Carl. He picked up right away.
“Hall is clear. Go,” I said.
“Got it.”
Carl hung up and a second later, two men in plumber’s coveralls exited the dressing room. One of the men, the older of the pair, held a large toolbox. Three minutes later, I watched the two men leave the building. Two minutes after that, all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I had no way to erase the surveillance footage, so I just closed the program and stepped away from the computer. I moved behind the chair and tipped it forward. Instinctively, Dickens pushed back to maintain his seat on the chair. His momentum sent him back into my arms, but I didn’t catch him. I slipped my arm around his throat and looped my free hand around the back of his head. My right hand hooked my inner elbow, closing a tight knot around the man’s throat. Jonathan could do nothing but watch as his boss lost consciousness. Dickens was out in ten seconds, I kept the choke on twenty-five. I lifted him out of the chair and dragged his unconscious body to the closet. It took a bit of juggling, but I got the door open without dropping the Symphony Orchestra director. I set Dickens down on his ass and then tipped his feet up towards his face. The dark closet swallowed him whole with a wet slurp from the urine-soaked carpet inside.
Jonathan had started to shimmy his body towards the door, as though he had a shot at opening it. He watched me come for him with wide, fearful eyes. I had planned to put him to sleep the same way I had just knocked out his boss, but Jonathan changed my plans when he tried to scream. His mouth opened wide, but the heel of my foot found his solar plexus before he could muster a noise. The air left the man’s body in a whoosh and Jonathan’s eyes suddenly opened wider as a new layer of panic settled in on him. I pulled the revolver, turned it in my hand, and brought the butt down across the handsome man’s temple. The eyes fluttered and then closed. I dragged Jonathan to the closet by his belt and pitched him on top of his boss. I closed the door and had just started wiping down the room when I heard the pops. There were three of them in quick succession and then two more. It could have been lights breaking, or something falling to the stage from the rafters. It could have been any of those things, but it wasn’t. The noises were gunshots.
I left the office and looked down onto the stage from the hallway window. Four men in yellow security T-shirts were on the ground; so was a man in a suit and another in a golf shirt. The seventh man on the ground was Miles. There was no sign of the shooter, and nothing to indicate that anyone had been actually shot. A second later, the security guards came up off the ground pulling at the weapons holstered on their hips. All four men moved off the stage and down into the orchestra pit. I put my face close to the glass and tried to see down into the pit, but there wasn’t a good angle from the balcony.
I heard the office phone ring as I watched musicians and staff pour out of the orchestra section in all directions. I glanced back at the stage and saw two men still on the floor. Neither was Miles. I gave up on the window, ignored the sound of the phone, and started moving. I went back into the office and wiped down the door, the desk, and the rest of the computer. Before I went back out the door, I ran the wipe over the closet doorknob.
I ran down the hallway to the stairwell door and used the wipe to open the latch. The stairwell echoed with the sounds of human panic and I forced myself to slow my pace and walk calmly down the stairs. I was halfway down when a small crowd burst through the second-floor door. There were six people in all, four women and two men, all of whom were holding cell phones. The bodies created a jam in the stairwell and the brief impediment gave a woman in her early forties a moment to glance to her left. She was short and wide and her dyed red hair was cut too short for her fat face. She locked eyes with me and squinted as she tried to place my face. I could read her thoughts like they were being broadcasted. If I was coming down the stairs from the boss’s floor, she should know who I was, but she didn’t.
The line started moving and the woman was forced to take her eyes off me. She was pushed forward by the surge of energy from the two women behind her and I followed in the wake. Three-quarters of the way down the stairs, the redhead risked a look over her shoulder at me. I saw her face turning in time to tilt my own and feign attention on navigating the steps.
The next look came in the lobby. The group of six, free from the confines of the hallway, expanded like Pillsbury dough from the canister. I went for the doors on the right, while the six employees angled left. The stragglers running out from the concert hall swept me up in their current and I picked up speed on my way to the door. All of the momentum dissipated on the other side of the glass doors. A throng of people, all of whom had been seeking the safety of somewhere else, had congealed in front of the concert hall.
I shouldered my way into the crowd in the direction of the parking lot and the van that Ilir had left for us. If I was lucky it was still there. Miles and I were supposed to meet up at the van and drive out together, but the gunshots had changed that, making it every man for himself now.
“There!”
The voice carried over the rapid conversations all around me. Everyone turned their head, everyone except me, towards the speaker.
“The man in the black suit. That’s him.” In my peripheral vision I saw a few heads swivel from the woman to my direction. I turned my head with them as though I were searching for the source of the commotion too and kept moving. The woman yelled some more, but without any reaction the crowd just wrote it off as a person in hysterics. I neared the outer edge of the crowd and found that I could go no further. People stood shoulder to shoulder in front of two police cruisers. The four patrolmen were out of the cars and asking everyone in polite, but firm tones, to stay where they were. There was no way I was getting past the cops without being noticed. I didn’t waste time wondering how the police were on site so fast; I just turned and began threading my way back through the crowd. As I neared the front of the concert hall, I saw that two of the four security guards were out front. Next to one of the yellow shirts was the redheaded woman. She saw me on the edge of the crowd and began pulling on the security guard’s shirt. I broke left at a leisurely pace and brought my phone from my pocket to my ear to obscure my face. I followed the concrete around the side of the building until I was out of sight and then I started running.
I made it to the other side of the building before anyone came around to follow me. I kept up my pace and sprinted across the rear of the building. I had covered about half of the distance when a police car rounded the corner. The driver saw me and immediately angled right and came to a quick stop. The cop riding up front was quick to get out of the vehicle and take a position behind the open door. I watched his hand go to his belt and start back up. Back wasn’t an option — forward was all I had left. I pulled the revolver from behind my back and put three bullets into the squad car. My finger moved faster than the shooter in the concert hall and I didn’t miss. The slugs punched through the driver side window and sent the cop down onto his knees under a shower of glass pebbles.
When the cop stuck his head up again, I had closed the gap.
“Drop the gun and put your hands in the air,” I said.
The cop was scared and quick to obey. I heard the gun hit the pavement and then saw two empty hands come up into the empty window pane.
I moved around the door fast and kept my voice loud and aggressive. “Face down on the ground.”
The cop did what he had been trained to make others do without hesitation. I scooped the police issue pistol up, threw it into the cruiser, and took a step back over the prone body. My rear foot had just left the ground when I was spun hard into the passenger door. The bullet had entered high on my left shoulder and would have put me on my back if it wasn’t for the second bullet. The shooter had overcorrected for the buck of the handgun and the second bullet came in lower and farther to the r
ight than the first. The slug punched me in the side and ended my sloppy pirouette. My back collided with the side of the squad car and I slid down the cruiser door to the pavement.
The cop on the ground was quick to move for my gun. He sprang to his knees and grabbed the barrel with two hands. The cop wrenched at the gun and began twisting it away from me. My other hand wouldn’t respond to what my brain was telling it to do. Luckily, my right hand picked up the slack. My finger tensed twice and the revolver bucked hard. After the second shot, the cop screamed and pulled two bloody hands away from the gun.
“Freeze!”
To my right was one of the yellow-shirted security guards. He had a black pistol trained on me — mine was still on the cop.
“Put the gun down, or I kill him,” I said.
“Put your weapon down, or I will shoot,” was the reply I received.
The bullet hadn’t hurt when it hit me, but now my shoulder was starting to burn.
“No,” I said. “Your gun. Now.”
The security guard didn’t move.
“Hey, cop, you got kids?” I asked.
The uniformed officer was cradling his hands. “Two,” he said. “I got two kids.”
“You want to see them again?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell the rent-a-cop to put down his gun.”
The cop wasted no time. “Put it down.”
The security guard didn’t move. I pushed myself up using the car at my back for support.
“Stay on the ground,” the guard called.
I figured I had seconds, not minutes, before another cop or guard was on the scene.
“Tell him your kids’ names,” I said.
“Laura and Jenny. Their names are Laura and Jenny. Please, just put the gun down, man.”
The security guard risked a look at the downed cop. He saw the tears, the pale face, and the blood. The security guard forced air out of his nose and then turned the muzzle of his pistol to the sky. He opened his other hand and showed me the palm. “Take it easy, pal. The gun is up. I’m going to put it on the ground now.”
The job had been planned well. We had covered every angle, or so we thought, but change had a way of seeping in through the cracks and ruining everything in a flood. The only anchor keeping me from getting swept away were the constants I set for myself — limits that couldn’t be crossed. The line was getting taken. No matter what — that was not going to happen. That one constant held me firm in the deep water rising around me. Everything was in flux. Everything, except me. I had not changed.
“It’s going down,” the security guard said as he slowly bent his knees to lower the gun the rest of the way to the pavement. “See?”
I swung the revolver right and covered the guard as his gun descended the last foot. The dark metal of the barrel clinked, like a dangerous cheers, when it made contact with the pavement. The guard, now unarmed, started to rise. I let him get to his feet before I put a bullet in his stomach.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
There really had been no choice at all. There were too many pieces on the board. I needed to knock a few of the pawns over to stall the ones that were still in the game. Two targets, two choices — a cop and someone playing at being a cop. But when there is a real cop on one side and a pretend one on the other, there really is no choice. Both were white men of similar age, hair, and build. Both were from the same geographical area. Both shared the same physiology. Both were similar in almost every way. But shoot one instead of the other, and the response will be entirely different. The cop was hurt and that was bad enough — I didn’t need the Buffalo police force to be any more motivated to come after me.
The security guard was on his side moaning. His yellow shirt was stained red and I could smell the shit spilling out of the hole in his gut. The wound was intentional — the bullet hole just above the beltline was deadly, but not immediately. With medical attention, the odds of him pulling through were good. It would take more than a doctor to save the guard’s life though. It would also take someone putting pressure on the wound and someone else to call for help. One bullet took care of the guard, the cop, and whoever showed up next.
I angled my body and managed to get my good shoulder against the side of the police car. I dug my heels in and shimmied to my feet. I stepped sideways twice, my back still against the car, and fell into the driver seat. The engine of the patrol car was still running and the radio was squawking like an angry chicken. I ignored the radio, put the car into drive, and pulled a tight U-turn. I drove around the building, keeping the car at an acceptable parking lot speed. The crowd loomed ahead on my right and heads began to snap in the direction of the cruiser. The other cop had held his position, but that wasn’t something that was going to last. At the edge of the crowd, I saw him squinting at the car. His eyes caught sight of me and his hand rose to his hip. I gave the cruiser a lot of gas and the bulky police issue engine responded by throwing me back against the seat. The gun the cop was going for hadn’t even cleared the holster when I whipped past him and onto the street. A few seconds later, I heard the radio call.
“Dispatch, the suspect has Peterson’s vehicle. I repeat. The suspect has Peterson’s vehicle and he is driving south away from the scene on Erie.”
Dispatch replied almost instantly and a call went out to several cars in the area. Cops began speaking over one another, creating a buzz like the angry soldiers of a damaged hive.
I followed the street as it veered to the right, quickly made another right onto a street leading under the Buffalo Skyway, and closed in on the bumper of the first car I saw. My bloody palm slapped against the dash until the flashers came on overhead.
The Subaru hatchback responded by signalling and pulling off of the road onto a quiet gravel parking lot under the bridge. The driver stopped parallel to the road and began rummaging around inside the car, likely for license and registration. I pulled the squad car in behind the Subaru and scanned the lot. No one was around. I searched the front seat for the first aid kit, but came up empty. I grabbed the police pistol off the passenger seat, pulled out the keys, and went around to the back of the squad car. Inside the trunk, I found the first aid kit. I took the white box and put it down on the pavement. I went through what was left inside the trunk and stashed four road flares in my pockets. I needed a jerry can, but all I found was a half-empty bottle of Pennzoil. I grabbed the kit and, on my way back around the car, paused at the gas tank cover. I opened the flap and unscrewed the cap. The motor oil went in with an easy squeeze. I popped the top off the road flare and it hissed to life. I shoved the flaming end deep into the gas tank and ran to the Subaru. The woman had watched everything in her rear-view, but she had not yet decided to drive away. The flashers exuded authority and most people would do whatever they were told if they thought someone with authority ordered them to do it. The Germans had proved that fact to the world more than once. The obedient citizen still had her window down and her licence in her hand when I got to the open window.
“Was I speeding, officer?” She had trouble getting the words out because her eyes were on the rear-view. I turned my head and saw the smoke coming out of the cruiser’s gas tank. There had not been much oil in the bottle, and it hadn’t led the flames to the tank. Not yet anyway.
I reached into the car and unlocked the doors.
“What are you do —”
The woman, a petite Latina in her forties, didn’t have enough time to finish the sentence before I got in the back seat.
I put the cop’s pistol to the back of her head and said, “Drive.”
The cars passing by rubbernecked the smoke, but not the Subaru.
“I don’t understand. What is going on?”
I pushed the gun harder into her scalp, parting the nest of thick black hair. The barrel revealed a current of grey hair running under the surface. A siege was underway, and the
woman needed chemical reinforcements if she was ever going to hold off the enemy.
“Signal, get into traffic, and start driving.”
“Okay, okay, just please don’t hurt me. Please.” The second please was all fear.
“Just drive, lady.”
The woman signalled and pulled onto the road. She didn’t even attempt to reverse so that she could use the entrance to leave the lot. She just drove the Subaru over the sidewalk and onto the road. I turned my body and grunted down the stab of pain in my side. The cruiser hadn’t exploded, but smoke had begun to pour out from underneath the vehicle. I didn’t need fireworks, just enough heat to fuck up the forensics. I wiped my hand on my shirt and pulled out the cell phone I had bought a few days before. I was getting tired and shock was starting to creep up on me. I needed to be at the safe house fast. I dialled the third saved number and Miles picked up on the second ring.