by Robert Crais
"Jerk."
She backed up and moved to another pump.
Pike watched the two men have a brief conversation, then continue past the clothing store to a sandwich shop. A hand-painted sign on the front window read: Wilson's TakeOut-po'boys amp; sandwiches.
The two men started to enter, but immediately backed away. A middle-aged woman carrying a white bag and a large purse came out. When she emerged, one of the men quickly turned to the street and the other brought his hand to his eyes, clearly trying to hide. The tell was so obvious the corner of Pike's mouth twitched, which was as close to a smile as Pike ever came.
When the woman was gone, the two men entered the sandwich shop.
Pike knew they were likely two guys looking to surprise a friend or buy a couple of sandwiches, but he wanted to see how it played out.
Pike crossed the street between passing cars. The sandwich shop was small, with two tiny tables up front by the window and a short counter in the rear where you ordered your food. A chalkboard menu and a New Orleans Saints Super Bowl Champions poster were on the walls behind the counter, along with a door that probably led to a storage room or pantry.
The events unfolding inside the takeout shop had happened quickly. When Pike reached the door, the two men had an older man on the floor, one punching the man's head, the other kicking his back. The man had rolled into a ball, trying to protect himself.
The two hitters hesitated when Pike opened the door, both of them sucking air like surfacing whales. Pike saw their hands were empty, though someone else might have been behind the counter or in the back room. Then the guy throwing punches went back to pounding, and the kicker turned toward Pike, his face mottled and threatening. Pike thought of nature films he'd seen with silverback gorillas puffing themselves to look fierce.
"You wan' this, bitch? Get outta here."
Pike didn't get out. He stepped inside and closed the door.
Pike saw a flick of surprise in the kicker's eyes, and the puncher hesitated again. They had expected him to run, one man against two, but Pike did not run.
The victim-the man on the floor-still curled into a ball, mumbled- "I'm okay. Jesus-" -even as the kicker puffed himself larger. He raised his fists and stomped toward Pike, a street brawler high on his own violence, trying to frighten Pike away.
Pike moved forward fast, and the surprised kicker pulled up short, caught off guard by Pike's advance. Then Pike dropped low and accelerated, as smoothly as water flows over rocks. He trapped the man's arm, rolled it backward, and brought the man down hard, snapping the radius bone and dislocating the ulna. He hit the man one time in the Adam's apple with the edge of his hand, the water now swirling off rocks as he rose to face the puncher, only the puncher had seen enough. He scrambled backward across the counter, and bounced off the wall as he ran out a back door.
The kicker gakked like a cat with a hair ball as he tried to breathe and scream at the same time. Pike dropped to a knee, watching the back door as he checked the man for a weapon. He found a nine-millimeter pistol, then left the downed man long enough to make sure no one was behind the counter or in the back room. He returned to the kicker, rolled him onto his belly, then stripped the man's belt to bind his wrists. The man shrieked when Pike twisted the injured arm behind his back, and tried to get up, but Pike racked his face into the floor.
Pike said, "Stop."
Pike had neutralized the assailant and secured the premises in less than six seconds.
The older man tried to sit up as Pike worked.
Pike said, "You good?"
"It's okay. I'm fine."
He didn't look fine. Blood veiled his face and spattered the floor. The man saw the red spots, touched his face, then examined the red on his fingers.
"Shit. I'm bleeding."
The man rose to a knee, but tipped sideways and ended up on his butt.
Pike took out his phone and thumbed in 911.
"Stay down. I'm getting the paramedics."
The man squinted at Pike, and Pike could tell he had trouble focusing.
"You a cop?"
"No."
"I don't need the paramedics. Catch my breath, I'll be fine."
The kicker twisted his head to see Pike.
"You ain't a cop, an' you broke my arm? You bitch, you better lemme up."
Pike pinned him with a knee, making the kicker gasp.
When the 911 operator came on the line, Pike described the situation and the victim's injury, told her he had a suspect in hand, and asked her to send the police.
The man made a feeble attempt to rise again.
"Fuck all that. Just throw the asshole out."
Pike had seen pretty much every violent injury that could happen to a human being, so he knew wounds pretty well. Scalp wounds produced a lot of blood and weren't generally serious, but it had taken a hard blow to split the man's forehead.
"Stay down. You have a concussion."
"Fuck that. I'm fine."
The man pulled his legs under himself, pushed to his feet, then passed out and fell.
Pike wanted to go to him, but the kicker was bunching to rise.
"Better get off me, ese. You gonna be sorry."
Pike dug his thumb into the side of the man's neck where the C3 nerve root emerged from the third vertebra, crushing the root into the bone. This caused the man's shoulder and chest to go numb with a sharp flash of pain. His diaphragm locked and his breathing stopped mid-breath. The C3 nerve controlled the diaphragm.
"If you get up, I'll do this again. It will hurt worse."
Pike released the pressure, and knew the man's shoulder and arm now burned as if they had been flushed with napalm.
"We good?"
The man gave a breathless grunt, eyes rolling toward Pike like a Chihuahua watching a pit bull.
"Yuh."
Pike straightened the man so he could breathe more easily, then checked his pulse. His pulse was strong, but his pupils were different sizes, which indicated a concussion. Pike pressed a wad of napkins to the man's wound to stop the bleeding.
The kicker said, "Who the fuck are you, man?"
"Don't speak again."
If Pike had not stopped for air, he would not have seen the men or crossed the street. He would not have met the woman he was about to meet. Nothing that was about to happen would have happened. But Pike had stopped. And now the worst was coming.
The paramedics arrived six minutes later.
2
The paramedics were two sturdy, forty-something women who pulled on vinyl gloves when they saw the blood. They went to work on the victim while Pike filled them in.
The banger, facedown on the floor with Pike's knee in his back, said, "Dude broke my arm. He attacked me, yo? I need somethin' for the pain."
The lead paramedic glanced at Pike. Her name was Stiles.
"He the guy who did this?"
"Him and a friend."
"His arm really broken?"
"Uh-huh."
She told Pike to let the man sit up, then nodded at her partner.
"Check out the lovely. I have this one."
Stiles managed to rouse the victim, whose speech was muddy and slurred, but grew more focused as she checked his pulse and blood pressure. He identified himself as Wilson Smith, a transplant from New Orleans who relocated after the storm. Pike found it interesting Smith did not refer to Hurricane Katrina by name; he called it "the storm." Pike also found it interesting that Mr. Smith did not have what Pike would have called a Southern accent. He sounded like he was from New York.
When Stiles flashed a penlight in his eyes, Smith tried to push her away.
"I'm okay."
"No, sir, you're not. You have a scalp wound with an open flap, and a concussion. My guess, you're looking at ten or twelve stitches here. We're bringing you in."
"I'm fine."
Smith tried to push her away again, but abruptly threw up. He settled down after that and closed his eyes. Pike watched the paramed
ics work as he waited for the officers to arrive. He was in it now, so he had to stay. There was nothing else to do.
The first responding officers showed up within minutes. The lead officer was a middle-aged Latina with calm eyes and P-3 stripes who introduced herself as Officer Hydeck, the Anglo name probably coming from a marriage. Her partner was a big, tough-looking rookie named Paul McIntosh who stood with his thumbs hooked in his Sam Browne like he wanted something to happen.
Hydeck spoke quietly with Stiles for a few minutes, asked both the victim and the suspect how they were doing, then came over to Pike.
"You the one called it in?"
"Yes, ma'am."
The emergency services operator would have relayed the information Pike provided.
"Uh-huh. And your name would be?"
"Pike."
The banger, who was being fitted with an air splint, said, "Dude broke my arm, yo? I want him arrested. I wanna press charges."
Hydeck asked for their identification. Pike handed over his driver's license, which McIntosh copied onto a Field Interview card along with Pike's phone number. The suspect had none. Pike wasn't surprised. Ninety-five percent of the people he had arrested while a police officer did not have a valid DL. The suspect identified himself as Reuben Mendoza, and claimed he had never been arrested.
Mc Intosh towered over him.
"You ganged up?"
"No way, bro. I roll clean."
McIntosh pointed at the initials on his neck. VT, which Pike, the paramedics, and the officers all knew meant Venice Trece-Venice Thirteen, a Latin gang.
"That why you're inked Venice Thirteen?"
"Them's my initials."
Hydeck said, "How you get VT out of Reuben Mendoza?"
"That's how you spell it in European."
Pike told them what he knew to be true, in short, declarative sentences just as he had been taught when he was a boot patrol officer, and gave Hydeck the pistol he had taken from Mendoza.
"Had this in his pocket."
Mendoza said, "That ain't mine, man, don't put that on me. I never seen that gun before."
"Was he hitting Mr. Smith with it?"
"Not that I saw. It was in his pocket."
Mendoza said, "I'm gonna sue you, bro, way you attacked me. He did something to my neck like Mr. Spock, yo? Gonna get pain and suffering."
McIntosh told him to shut up, then turned back to Pike.
"What about the other one? He have a gun?"
"Didn't see it if he did. When I entered, Mr. Smith was on the floor. The other man was punching him in the head. This one was kicking him. When I took this one down, his buddy ran out the back. I didn't see a weapon."
McIntosh grinned at Mendoza.
"Homie had your back, bro. Right out the door."
Hydeck passed the gun to McIntosh, told him to secure it in their vehicle and call in a second EMS wagon. The victim and suspect would not be transported in the same vehicle.
Another patrol car and the second EMS ambulance arrived a few minutes later. The new officers took Mendoza out while Stiles and her partner brought in their gurney. Hydeck questioned Smith while the paramedics worked on him. Smith told her the two men asked for a sandwich, but he wanted to close so he could go to the bank, and told them to leave. He claimed the two men refused, and that's how the fight started.
Hydeck appeared doubtful.
"So they didn't try to rob you or anything like that? You got in a fight 'cause they wanted a po'boy and you wanted to leave."
"I mighta said something. It got out of hand."
The paramedics were lifting him onto the gurney when Pike saw her enter through the rear door. She hadn't seen the ambulances and police vehicles out front, and now the uniforms crowding the small room stopped her as if she had slammed into an invisible wall. Pike watched her eyes snap from the paramedics to the gurney to the police-snap, snap, snap-sucking up the scene until-snap-her eyes came to him, and that's where they stayed. She looked at him as if she had never seen anything like him. Pike guessed she was in her early thirties, with olive skin and lines around her eyes. She had smart eyes, and the lines made them better. She wore a sleeveless linen dress, flat sandals, and short dark hair. The dress was wrinkled. Pike liked smart eyes.
Then Hydeck and McIntosh turned, and her eyes left him for them.
Hydeck said, "May I help you?"
"What happened? Wilson, are you all right? Wilson's my uncle."
Smith shifted to see past the paramedics.
"That's Dru. She's my niece."
Her name was Dru Rayne, and she moved between Smith and the police as they told her what happened.
"You were assaulted right here? Right here in the shop? They attacked you?"
"I was doing okay, then this guy here stopped it."
Dru Rayne studied Pike again, and this time she mouthed two words, as if the officers and paramedics and her uncle could not see or were not there, creating a moment between the two of them that included no one else.
"Thank you."
Pike nodded once.
Then she turned to the paramedics.
"Is he going to be all right?"
"They'll keep him for observation. With head injuries like this, they like to keep them overnight."
"I'm not staying. They stitch me up, I'm outta there."
Dru Rayne moved to the gurney and looked down at him.
"Wilson. Please don't be like that."
Hydeck gave her card to Ms. Rayne and informed her that detectives would likely interview her uncle at the hospital. The paramedics finished strapping Smith to the cart, and Pike watched his niece follow them out. She did not look back at Pike as she left.
Hydeck waited until they were gone, then turned back to Pike. She still held his driver's license.
"You think what happened here was a dispute over a sandwich?"
Pike shook his head, and Hydeck glanced at his license again.
"You look familiar. Do I know you?"
"No."
"Those tattoos ring a bell."
A bright red arrow was inked onto the outside of each of Pike's deltoids. She could see them because Pike wore a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. Government-issue sunglasses shiny and black as a beetle's shell hid his eyes, but the arrows hung on his arms like neon signs. They pointed forward. Pike was six feet one, weighed just over two hundred pounds, and his arms were ropy with muscle. His hair was a quarter-inch short, his skin was cooked dark, and his knuckles were scarred and coarse.
Hydeck thumbed the edge of his license.
"Most people walk into a beat-down like this, they run. But looking at you, I guess you can handle yourself. What do you do, Mr. Pike?"
"Businessman."
"Of course."
Pike expected her to ask what kind of business, but she returned his license. If she noticed a bulge where one of the two pistols he carried was hidden, she ignored it.
"Guess Mr. Smith is lucky it was you who happened by."
She gave him a business card.
"The detectives will probably call you, but this is my card. You think of anything in the meantime, call."
Pike took the card, and Hydeck left to join McIntosh at their radio car. Dru Rayne was with her uncle as the paramedics opened their vehicle. She clutched his hand as she spoke to him, and seemed very intent. Then she stepped away and the paramedics slid the gurney into their truck. Hydeck and McIntosh climbed into the radio car, flipped on their lights, and stopped traffic to let the ambulance leave. The paramedics headed toward the hospital. Hydeck and McIntosh turned in the opposite direction, already rolling to another call.
Dru Rayne watched the ambulance. She stared after it until the ambulance was gone, then hurried back to the shop. Pike didn't like the way she hurried. It looked like she was running for cover.
Pike said, "Why is he lying?"
She startled, making a little jump.
"You scared me."
Pike nodded, t
hen thought he should probably apologize.
"Sorry."
She gave him another grateful smile, then went behind the counter.
"It's me. I'm jumpy, I guess. I have to go to the hospital."
"Why is he lying?"
"Why do you think? He's scared they'll come back."
"They've been here before?"
She turned off the deep fryers and put lids on metal condiment containers, speaking as she worked. Wilson sounded like a New Yorker, but her accent was softer, maybe because she was a woman.
"They live here, we live here, so we have to think about these things. People like that, they always come back."
"If you think they'll come back, you should tell the police. Hydeck knows what she's doing."
She cocked her head.
"I thought you were the police."
"No."
"You look like a policeman. Kinda."
"Just passing by."
She smiled again, then offered her hand across the counter.
"Dru Rayne. You can call me Dru."
"Joe Pike."
"Then that was extra nice, what you did, helping like that, Mr. Pike. Thank you."
They shook, then Dru Rayne turned back to her work, speaking over her shoulder.
"Now, I don't want to be rude or anything, but I have to get this place locked up so I can get to the hospital."
Pike nodded, thinking there was no reason he shouldn't leave, but he didn't. He clocked her hand. No wedding ring.
"Would you like me to take you?"
"That's all right, no. But thank you for offering."
Pike tried to think of something else to say.
"Talk to the police."
"We'll be fine. You don't know my uncle. He probably called them names."
She flashed a warm smile, but Pike knew she wasn't going to tell the police any more than her uncle.
She stacked the metal containers, then carried the stack into the back room. When she disappeared, Pike wrote his name and cell number on an order pad he found by the cash register. He wrote his personal cell number, not the business number he gave the police.
"I'm leaving my number. You need me, call."
She was still in the back.
"Okay. Thanks again."
Pike returned to his Jeep, but did not leave the scene. He found the service alley that ran behind Wilson's sandwich shop, and waited at the far end. A few minutes later, Dru Rayne came out, locked the door, and hurried to a silver Tercel. It was an older model with paint scraped from the rear bumper, and it needed a wash. Pike thought she looked worried.