by Dave Stanton
The hail of bullets paused. I pulled my Beretta .40 semiauto from the bag and stuck an extra eleven-round clip in my pocket. Crouching low, I turned the light off, opened the side door, and stepped onto a strip of baked dirt. The side yard was fenced in by seven-foot-tall wood planks. I ducked under the branches of a large tree growing near the front of the strip. Then I stepped up on the utility meter, wedged one foot against the tree, and looked over the fence. A slice of moon lit the clear night. The two cars idled across the street. The trailing car was a Chevy sedan. From its rear seat, a black man got out and brought a small weapon with a large clip to his shoulder. An Uzi, or a similar piece. I put him in the Beretta’s sights and pulled the trigger just as he took a step forward. At about sixty feet, the Beretta was a sure thing. The slug hit the man in the center of the chest, and he bounced off the car and fell flat on his face.
In a fluid motion I turned my pistol on the car in front, a Ford four-door. I fired six shots, blowing out the windows, the lead punching through the doors, and then I fired twice more at a dark figure moving in the front seat. Each pull of the trigger jolted my arm with a force of an eighteen-pound sledge hitting a railroad tie.
What happened next I would later think of as a microcosmic culmination of two hundred years of racial prejudice and a resulting culture that inspired poor black teenagers to become ghetto thugs. I would think in context of a race brought across an ocean to serve as slaves and winning their freedom, only to be relegated to the lowest strata of society. I would think of single mothers, abusive or imprisoned fathers, tenement apartments without heat, hungry children, desperate financial predicaments, and a criminal element that recruited innocent youngsters and taught them that not only was gangsta life the sole path to material comfort, but also that there was nothing wrong with dying young, if only one could enjoy a few good years. I would think these thoughts with an underlying of sadness before reminding myself that many of the people I came across had choices but, being evil at heart, chose evil.
The rear door of the lead car opened on the side opposite me. A man came around the front of the car, pointing his handgun my direction, palm down. His clothes were oversize, from his floppy beanie to his T-shirt and baggy jeans. He was festooned with silver and gold necklaces and sported matching rings and grill work.
“Come get some a dis, bitch!” he yelled, walking forward, the moonlight glinting off the silver on his front teeth. He raised his hand and started shooting. The first round passed over my head, and the second hit the tree a couple feet to my right. Before he could fire again I squeezed the trigger, but my aim was imperfect. The slug hit him in the crotch, and he went down with a squeal and started writhing on the pavement.
The driver of the Chevy sedan reacted by shifting into reverse, but he must have slammed the gas pedal to the floor, because the single rear tire shrieked and spun futilely, spitting gutter water, and the vehicle barely moved. I fired twice through the windshield, and the howl of the motor ceased. The car began rolling backward, billows of smoke rising from the wheel well. I ejected the spent clip and jammed in a fresh magazine. A man tried to jump out of the still-moving sedan, but I shot him before he could fully exit, and his torso folded under the chassis, his legs caught inside, and then he came free and the right front tire rolled up on him, stopping the car. The weight of the vehicle would have crushed him to death, but I was pretty sure he didn’t feel a thing, because I’d seen my round exit the side of his head.
From my perch I methodically fired seven more shots into the Chevy. I targeted carefully, aiming low in the windows. With three rounds remaining, I pulled myself up and jumped over the fence. Both cars sat still. I walked to where the man I wounded lay curled on the asphalt. His breath came in tortured wheezes, but when he saw me he didn’t plea for help or mercy. Instead, he raised his gun, a final glimmer of hate still burning in his pupils. I shot first, and the light instantly went out of his eyes, and then blood spilled from the hole in his forehead.
“Life would have sucked with your balls blown off anyway,” I said.
• • •
After checking the cars and seeing nothing but dead bodies, I rushed inside and found Cody sitting upright and pulling on the tourniquet around his thigh.
“There goes the neighborhood,” he said, trying to smile. “Sounded like fucking World War Three.”
I became aware of sirens, the volume increasing. “I’m calling an ambulance,” I said. “You hurt bad?”
“You ever hear of anyone hurt good?”
I looked at his blood-soaked pants and the stain on the carpet. “The paramedics will be here in a couple minutes.”
“It didn’t hit bone. But the bullet’s still in there.”
“I’ll get you some water. You look a little pale.”
“Make it a can of Coors and pour me a shot of Beam, too.”
I brought him his drinks, then took the ends of my belt and worked the tourniquet. And that’s the way the San Jose PD found us when they stormed into Cody’s house a few minutes later.
• • •
The uniforms were followed closely by four plainclothesmen, then the ambulances pulled up, along with a medical examiner. They closed off the street, and more cops arrived to keep the neighbors at bay. Within five minutes there were more than a dozen vehicles on the street, half with blue and red lights swirling atop their roofs. I stood on the front lawn surrounded by policemen, as if I was the main attraction at some sort of macabre carnival.
I ignored their questions until I saw that Cody was loaded in an ambulance. Then two plainclothesmen took me aside and asked what had happened.
“A drive-by shooting. Except they took their time, which gave me the chance to defend myself.”
“Defend yourself? There’s six dead bodies out there!” The detective was a stocky Hispanic man with cocked eyebrows and a round chin.
“They didn’t expect anyone to return fire. They were on their way into the house to finish us off.”
“Why would someone want to kill you?” The second detective was a woman in her forties. Her face looked leached of moisture, the skin dry and wrinkled, and her frown looked so permanent I wondered how much muscular energy she’d have to expend to muster a smile.
“I’m a licensed investigator and bounty hunter. I also have a license to carry the firearm.” I took my wallet from my back pocket and handed the woman my ID cards.
“What, you think this grants you some kind of immunity?”
“Immunity from what?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” she said.
“Come on, we’re heading downtown,” the other cop said. He put his hand on my arm and began toward his car.
“Do I need to call my lawyer?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you?”
• • •
The next three hours were exactly what I expected—intense questioning broken by spells of boredom, followed by different questions from different detectives, followed by more alone time in an interrogation room. The tedium finally played itself out at one in the morning, when the Hispanic cop said I was free to go as long as I promised to return at ten A.M., when the DA would determine whether or not to file charges.
“Six men dead, a neighborhood shot to hell, and your story is pretty damn thin,” he said. “There’s a lot you’re not telling us.”
“I’d like a ride over to Valley Medical,” I said.
“Call a cab. And don’t be late tomorrow, or I’ll issue a warrant.”
I went through the checkout process and collected my belongings, except for my Berretta, which was being held as evidence. Ten minutes later I walked into the nearby hospital and was told Cody had undergone a minor surgery to remove the slug from his leg, and was asleep. I rubbed my eyes and wondered briefly about a hotel, then I took a cab back to Cody’s house.
Crime scene tape was stretched from the side yard fence across the street to where the two bullet-pocked cars were still parked. The tape wa
s routed along the cars and around a tree and then back to the other side of Cody’s house. Near the cars, white chalk outlined the shapes of the three men who’d died on the street. A single squad car was parked perpendicular in the middle of the road. I got out of the cab and walked over to the cruiser, where two patrolmen sat sipping from coffee cups.
“I’m gonna spend the night here,” I said. “Okay?”
“No problem,” said a cop. “The detectives are done inside.” He yawned.
“Hey,” his partner said, leaning forward so I could see his ruddy complexion. “Got to hand it to you, you sure took it to those spooks. You used to be a Green Beret or something?”
“Nope. Just lucky.”
“Lucky, my ass. We ought to turn you loose at Story and King.”
“Not me, fellas. I’m just trying to make a living.”
“Amen, brother,” the cop said, and gave me the thumbs-up.
I went inside. Broken glass and tufts of cotton filling from the couches were scattered about the living room. A hanging lamp had fallen and lay shattered on the kitchen table, which was splintered down the middle by a row of bullet holes. More holes patterned the walls, the paint chipped around the edges, and I could see where the detectives had dug a pair of slugs out of the sheetrock. I walked to the adjoining laundry room and saw my bag was where I’d left it. The contents appeared unmolested. I double-checked the gear, placed the bag in Cody’s guest room, and went out the back door to where my truck was parked outside his garage. I got in the driver’s seat and turned off the dome light. With my fingernails I pried up the molded storage compartment in the center console and yanked free the Hi-Point 380 ACP subcompact I’d taped to the transmission tunnel. I’d acquired the piece from a Mexican citizen at the time of his death, and I knew for a fact that it was untraceable.
I returned to the bedroom and checked the safety before putting the gun under my pillow. Then I lay down, put my arm over my eyes, and focused on pushing my thoughts aside. On the periphery of my consciousness, I sensed a growing swarm of images, all charged with negative energy, recriminatory and accusing, but I was exhausted, and within a minute I was asleep.
I woke at five A.M. with a case of what I call the night dreads, something that haunted me on a regular basis back in the days when I was trying to deconstruct myself with whiskey, vodka highballs, and ice-cold beer for breakfast. My mouth was dry, and the moonlight shining through the window was like a spike through my eyelids. I got up, gulped water from the bathroom faucet, then closed the shade and got back in bed. A lump had formed in my stomach, and I took deep breaths, hoping to stem a wave of nausea. Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead and my hands were clammy. I lay on my back and tried to meditate myself back to sleep. Eventually my stomach calmed, and I entered a state of semislumber. The dialogue that then commenced in my head was attended by a variety of voices: those of men I’d killed, my father’s, Candi’s, and that of a prosecutor who’d once tried to convict me of murder. Their condemnations were serpentine and mercurial in nature, which made it impossible to articulate an effective defense. But it was pointless to try, as their verdicts were foregone and rendered me something less than human.
After perhaps an hour, the voices subsided and were replaced by a dream in which a condemned man was put against a wall to be shot. His heinous crimes were unspoken, but there was no denying his guilt. The firing squad, comprised of men dressed in seventeenth-century French Colonial soldier uniforms, became unavailable at the last moment. I found myself recruited for the task and faced the convict, my pistol cocked.
“Have you any last words?” I asked.
“Yeah. I did what I did because it suited me.” He was white, his face unshaven and grizzled.
“You’ll burn in hell for it.”
“I stole and raped and murdered whole families. No one could stop me.”
“I’ll stop you now.”
He smirked, and then I realized the man was Hubert Sheridan, the psychotic degenerate who’d ambushed my father and ended his life with a shotgun blast.
I fired, and the bullet hit him square between the eyes. He raised his finger, dabbed at a small drop of blood, and smiled at me. I pulled the trigger again and again, but he remained standing.
I woke with a jolt. It was seven o’clock. I walked out to Cody’s kitchen like a zombie and looked for his coffee maker. A bullet had shattered the pot and pierced the stainless steel body.
“Ah, shit,” I said.
• • •
I pulled into Valley Medical at nine, showered, wearing fresh clothes, and alert after breakfast and three strong cups at a local diner. In the light of day, the remorse lurking in my subconscious was gone, replaced by the cold hard logic that I’d killed men who were trying to murder both Cody and me. A person not familiar with combat situations might claim I could have shot fewer than six and perhaps allowed some of them a chance to surrender. Following that tactic would have surely increased my chances of getting shot, and that was a risk I was unwilling to take. The six men had thrown all in when they chose to attack at night, with superior numbers and firepower and without warning. In hindsight, they were clearly amateurs, gangbangers with no practical training. As assassins, they might be effective in close quarters against unsuspecting targets, but they probably botched those jobs half the time. But there was no way I could have known that in the heat of battle, and I probably wouldn’t have reacted differently even if I did.
When I walked into Cody’s room, he was sitting upright in the hospital bed. He put down the newspaper he was reading and said, “What’s that?”
“I got you breakfast at Denny’s.” I set two Styrofoam cartons on the table next to the bed. He opened a container and set it on his lap.
“You are a saint.” Cody picked up a piece of bacon with his fingers and began eating.
“You said it, not me,” I said. “How’s the leg?”
“Not bad, considering. I’ll limp for a while, but it was just a flesh wound. There’s the round.” He nodded toward the table, where a small piece of lead sat in a plastic cup. I dumped it into my palm and held it up to the light.
“They worked me over pretty good at the station last night,” I said.
“Six stiffs, what do you expect? Pass me those paper towels, would you?”
“I’ve got to be back there in a few minutes for another round of interrogation.”
“Listen,” he said, “if Landers questions you—and he probably will—get him alone if he starts acting like an asshole. He’ll probably try to turn the screws on you if he knows I’m involved. Tell him about the pictures we got of him and the black whore.”
“All right.”
“Have you called the general yet?”
“No,” I replied. “I was waiting for him to call with the G-2 on Ahmad Jones.”
Cody swallowed and put down his plastic silverware. “Give me his number,” he said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him.”
“I’m in the hospital, my house shot to shit, you just cooled out six homeboys, and you want to slow-play this? Do you not think Lawrence Tucker put the hit on us?”
“I said I’d talk to him—”
“Dirt, listen to me. We’ll take care of our obligation to Ryan Addison. But we’re dealing with something bigger now. The general calls the CIA, they’ll take Tucker off at the knees, and then we can do our job.”
“We’re on the same page, Cody. I’ll call him as soon as I get done with SJPD.”
“Call him now,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about that C-4 and Tucker’s phony Arab name and his history with the carpet pilots.”
“I hear you,” I said.
“You didn’t say anything to SJPD about Lawrence Tucker, did you?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Because Landers is probably getting paid off by someone linked to the case. And even if he’s not, what good is SJPD gonna do in investigating Tucker? Most of their detectives are bozos, and their
bureaucracy is a fucking joke.”
A nurse pushed aside the curtain and walked in.
“It’s time to check out, Mr. Gibbons,” she said, clipboard in hand.
“Call me as soon as you get done,” Cody said, pointing his finger at me.
• • •
After clearing the scanning machine and undergoing a thorough pat down from a rookie cop doing his best tough guy imitation, I sat on a plastic chair in the police lobby. The minutes ticked by, and I pondered the parade of disparate characters involved in the case. Duante Tucker, violent rapist; Darrian Bannon, high-flying attorney on the downside of his luck; and Shanice Tucker, a beautiful hooker who just happened to be turning tricks with police captain Russ Landers. Throw in hapless South Lake Tahoe prosecutor Tim Cook, Lindsey Addison and her temporary friends, and eight dead black men, and the possibilities were endless.
Or were they?
Cody Gibbons was a man of unquenchable appetites who often acted irresponsibly, and sometimes I felt he was unwilling to invest himself fully in the particular drudgeries that come with investigative work. The stakeouts, the interviews, the paperwork—it was usually me driving these activities when we worked together. So what did Cody bring to the table, aside from his cavalier approach to violence? He possessed an attribute that some may call intangible, but after years of working with him, I’d learned to not discount it; Cody had gut criminal instinct. He brought this to his job from day one, as a cop and then as a private investigator, and he’d once summed it up succinctly by telling me, “When you assume anything but the worst from a criminal, you do exactly what they want you to do.”
Lawrence Tucker, by virtue of his background, seemed a man capable of almost any crime. Ahmad Jones, who died along with Lennox Suggs, was a marine, unless he chose to be inscribed with a misleading tattoo. That meant that Lawrence Tucker’s crew consisted of both gang members and individuals with a military background. Cody wanted to sic the CIA on him, and the FBI and Homeland Security Department would probably join the party, too. My hesitation was based on a desire to keep Lawrence Tucker in the game until we could discover his connection to Duante Tucker. But Cody viewed the situation with a fair amount of urgency, and that was something I couldn’t ignore. I don’t like to admit it, but Cody sometimes sees things more clearly than I do. Particularly when it involves the most nefarious aspects of criminal behavior.