Big City Heat

by David Burnsworth

  All the windows appeared closed. In the shadows, Brack pulled out the thirty-eight and raised his hand to Tara to stop. They were two steps from the backyard, also dark. Aside from the sounds of the city, all was quiet. No dogs or cats. No crickets.

  With his free hand, he motioned to Tara to stay put. He cocked the hammer back, extended the revolver out in front of him, and took a step into the backyard.

  A gun fired and the bullet ricocheted off the back of the house, missing Brack by inches. He hit the deck and made a slow retreat. The flash had been in front of him, to the left. It was tough to see in the darkness and he hoped Tara had already run for cover.

  He said, “Hey, Townsend, we only want to talk.”

  Anther blast. The bullet thumped into the siding just above Brack’s head. He backed around the corner to where he’d left Tara. She was gone.

  Without knowing where Townsend hid, Brack didn’t want to start firing. The neighborhood was dense enough that a stray bullet could hit another home, and maybe someone inside that home.

  He stood, his back against Townsend’s house, and eased his way to the street, his eyes and aim still trained on the rear. At the corner of the house, Brack took his attention away from the direction where Townsend had fired from and scanned the street. The familiar sound of a police siren could be heard in the distance, but getting closer. From experience, he calculated they’d be here in less than three minutes.

  That gave him enough time to make one more run at Townsend. He crossed the front of the house and eased along the other side, glad he had the thirty-eight in his hands. Although his weapon of choice was a forty-five, he liked the way Mutt’s gun punched holes in whatever it hit. If Townsend remained in a less than agreeable mood, the thirty-eight would do the trick.

  Coming to the rear corner of the home from the opposite side, Brack peered around. The lighting was a little better, thanks to some porch lights that were turned on, presumably by the same folks who called the cops.

  The backyard was empty. Brack lowered the weapon.

  A car horn sounding a lot like the Mazda’s blared from the street. Brack took that as his cue and ran toward it.

  Tara waved frantically at him from the driver’s seat. As soon as he got in, she floored it. He watched blue lights bounce off the homes behind them as they shot through a four-way stop and turned onto a side street.

  “I heard gunshots,” she said, out of breath. “I got so scared.” She put a hand to her face.

  He saw they were about to hit a parked car and grabbed the steering wheel.

  Tara screamed and got the car back under control.

  He said, “We need to pull over.”

  She slammed on the brakes at the next stop sign, stalling the engine. Then she rested her head against her hands on the steering wheel and cried.

  There were no cars behind them at the moment.

  He pulled the emergency brake, pushed the button to turn on the hazard lights, and put a hand on her to rub her shoulder while she shook and shuddered. He realized that calling her had been another one of his mistakes. He and Mutt had served in war. They were used to gunfire. Ordinary civilians were not. Darcy might have been an exception because she was anything but ordinary.

  Brack said, “I’m sorry.”

  Her sobs subsided. She held up a hand. “No, I’m sorry.”

  “First time you ever been shot at?” Brack asked.

  She looked at him. “We could have died back there.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “True,” he said. “But we didn’t.”

  Wiping her eyes with a tissue from her pocketbook, she asked, “How do you do it? I mean, it’s as if you’re already past it all.”

  “You need to hang around my friend, Brother Thomas. He quotes Psalm twenty-three, verse four whenever it gets tough.”

  A car sped around them.

  She said, “I don’t read the Bible.”

  He said, “‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.’”

  “That helps you relax?”

  “There’s always a good side and a bad side. At least, there’s a light gray side and a dark gray side.”

  “And we’re on the right side, aren’t we?”

  “Yes. That’s all we have to know.”

  “But aren’t you afraid of dying?”

  He said, “I should have died a long time ago.”

  “So what is this?” she asked. “You don’t care? Thanks a lot. It would have been nice to know I got into a car with someone with a death wish.”

  “I don’t have a death wish,” he said. “I just don’t worry about it. At least my own death.”

  “You do worry about other people dying?”

  “Of course. Especially those I’m responsible for.”

  She touched his face with the back of her hand. “You’re not responsible for me. I’m a big girl.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but I got careless.”

  People think they’re okay with danger, but most don’t have a clue. Brack had forgotten that fact and now Tara would have nightmares of gunshots for a while, tough act or not.

  Someone honked a horn behind them. Brack rolled down his window and flagged them around. They passed by, flipping him the bird.

  Watching the car and its rude occupants pass, Tara said, “I guess we should get going. Where to now?”

  “I think it’s time to take you home.”

  “Don’t be like that,” she said. “I’m okay. As long as no one else shoots at us.”

  “That’s the problem,” he said. “I can’t make any promises. Townsend might have attacked Cassie and killed Nina. This has already been taken up a few notches.”

  With a sigh, she opened her car door and got out. He did the same.

  They crossed the front of the car at the same time, the headlights illuminating them. He stopped. So did she.

  Eye to eye, hers a little puffy, she gave him a smile. “You really are crazy, aren’t you?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Cassie. She said that for the right reason, you and Mutt will stop at nothing.”

  He had no response.

  “Is Regan the right reason?” she asked.

  The question surprised Brack. But he already knew the answer.

  “No. Mutt is.” At that moment, he thought she understood.

  She said, “You’re here to protect Mutt.”

  “I’m here to keep him from doing anything stupid. Like going after Vito himself.” And I’m here to see Darcy, if only for one last time, he thought.

  Stepping back, she said, “So you go after him yourself? Is that really any smarter?”

  “At least Mutt’s not in the crosshairs.” Something occurred to Brack. “Tara, you took on three guys at one time and probably would have beaten them all whether I helped or not.”

  “So?”

  “Any one of them could have had a gun,” he said.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, her mouth forming a sideways kiss.

  He said, “See what I mean? It wasn’t your time or mine. All we can do is keep moving forward.”

  “That was in reaction to the unexpected,” she said. “This is deliberate retaliation. I’m not sure if I can do this.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “But you’re still going after Vito, aren’t you?”

  He propped a sandal on the car’s front bumper.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m in. All the way. But first let’s go see Cassie.”

  “Good.”

  “Really?” she asked, moving in close. “You aren’t worried I might freak out again?”

  Her face was inches from his. He could smell her light perfume and feel her breath.

  They sto
od that way for a few seconds.

  She said, “You don’t rattle easily, do you?”

  “No.” Not since Afghanistan.

  As he piloted them through Midtown Brack used the hands-free option to dial Darcy. This time of night, traffic was lighter, but still no picnic.

  She answered with a question. “Find Townsend?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “He shot at me and Tara.”

  “You guys got shot at? How’s Tara?”

  “I’m fine,” came the voice to Brack’s right. “Just a little rattled.”

  Darcy said, “So Townsend’s our man.”

  “One of them,” he agreed.

  His favorite reporter said, “Where are you now?”

  “Tara wants to check on Cassie,” he said. “We’re heading to the hospital.” Besides, he thought, it’s the safest place he could think of for the time being. Even though visiting hours were over, at the moment Tara probably couldn’t handle any more gunfire.

  “I can log into my network’s database from home,” Darcy said. “I’ll see what else I can find on Townsend.”

  They hung up and he parked in the same spot in the hospital lot he’d used before. He led Tara past the receptionist to the waiting room where he’d last seen Mutt.

  Mutt wasn’t there.

  One of the nurses said she thought he’d left about thirty minutes ago but didn’t say where he was going. She didn’t know if he’d gotten a cab or not. Brack asked to see Cassie.

  Against the rules, they were led to the Intensive Care Unit. Cassie’s room looked similar to any other hospital room he’d been in before. She lay sleeping. Wires hung off her connected to the monitoring machines beside her that blinked quietly in the background. The nurse said Cassie had been in and out of consciousness since she arrived and the police were on standby to get a statement.

  Cassie’s face was beaten pretty badly. One eye had swollen shut.

  Tara touched Cassie’s hand, grasping it lightly, and bent down and kissed her forehead.

  Brack stepped out of the room and called Mutt. He answered on the second ring.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  Mutt said, “On my way to see Hugh. Nina’s husband.”

  “Want some company?”

  “You wanna come?”

  He said, “Me and Tara.”

  “She wit you?”

  “Yeah.” Brack told him what happened with Townsend. “Darcy’s getting us all the intel she has on this cold-blooded murderer.”

  “Good. Get over to my house. I’ll pick you up there.”

  Brack hung up and went back to the room. Tara had pulled a chair close to the bed. She sat looking at Cassie and holding her hand.

  He said, “You’re welcome to hang around here if you want. I’ll come back for you.”

  Looking away from Cassie to him, she asked, “Are you leaving?”

  “Mutt will meet me at his house. Then we’re heading over to visit Nina’s husband.”

  Tara said, “This is so terrible what happened. I can’t believe this is real.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He waited to see what she wanted to do. Eventually she got up and moved the chair back to the corner of the room.

  With a deep breath, she said, “Okay.”

  Twenty minutes later they pulled into Mutt’s driveway. His white Cadillac was there. So was Brother Thomas’s Volvo. That answered the question about whether Mutt had taken a cab when leaving the hospital.

  They found Brother Thomas and Mutt seated at the kitchen table, untouched cups of coffee in front of them. Brack introduced Tara to Brother Thomas. Mutt got two more mugs and filled them with coffee. Brack took his black. Tara added a few splashes of milk to hers.

  “This is bad, Opie.”

  Brack nodded.

  Brother Thomas said, “You didn’t start this mess, mm-hmm.”

  But Brack knew they were going to finish it.

  As if reading his thoughts, both his friend and his pastor looked at him. “You don’t have to finish it either.”

  Brack didn’t play poker with his friends for several reasons, one being that they could already tell what was in his mind.

  Tara said, “Vito’s got money and connections and power.”

  “And a whole lotta guns and muscle,” Mutt added, no doubt thinking of Cassie’s heavy bruising.

  “But he isn’t on the right side of the line,” Brack said. “Sooner or later he’s bound to fall.”

  Brother Thomas said, “I suggest we visit with Nina’s husband and go from there.”

  The apartment where Nina had lived with her family was located close to Lenox Mall. The visitors trudged to the second floor of a three-story unit. Hugh answered the door with a solemn look while he held a little boy in his arms. Another small boy stood by his side, clutching his father’s leg.

  Mutt introduced everyone.

  Brother Thomas said, “You mind if we come in and say a few prayers with you and your sons?”

  Hugh nodded and opened the door wider so the visitors could enter.

  Within the last year, Brother Thomas and Brack had worked with the Charleston Police Department and informed a murder victim’s next of kin. That was a very somber situation, but easy compared to trying to look these boys in the eye to offer condolences. How did one attempt to encourage kids when their mother would never come home again?

  The longer Brack stayed in this grief-heavy home, the angrier he got. At the ones who killed Nina, sure. But also at himself. He’d seen the Expedition in the restaurant’s parking lot. And thanks to Darcy he’d already gotten the requisite tie-in to Vito. But he didn’t react quickly enough. In a way, this tragedy was his fault too.

  And he’d have to carry that with him.

  Brother Thomas had all of them sit around the living room holding hands while he prayed for Hugh and the boys, Travis and Monte.

  By the time the four visitors got out of there, Brack was far from at peace. He wanted blood. No, he really wanted more death. It was the only punishment left. The men who did this would pay for it with their lives. And he would have no regrets about that.

  They rode back to Mutt’s in Brother Thomas’s Volvo, Tara and Brack in the backseat.

  Seeming to sense Brack’s mood, Brother Thomas said, “Before you go off and blow up everything in the city, Brother Brack, we ought to have a little talk.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” Brack asked, not taking his eyes off the late-night scene along of Peachtree Street.

  The pastor said, “I think we better have us a plan first, mm-hmm.”

  “Sure. My plan involves gunshots and blunt force trauma.”

  Tara asked, “Yours or theirs?”

  Brack said, “Et tu, Brutus?”

  “She right, Opie,” Mutt said. “I don’t wanna have to go to your funeral along with Nina’s.”

  “All right, Mutt. Tell me about Regan.”

  “What you wanna know?”

  What came to mind was that she better be worth all this. Otherwise Brack might shoot her himself. “Why did she choose to go with Vito?”

  “Cassie thinks she got brainwashed,” Mutt said.

  Tara asked, “Is that what you think?”

  “I think no. She got a drug addiction. And she crazy.”

  Brack said, “She could die in all this.”

  Brother Thomas asked, “What do you mean, Brother Brack?”

  “Vito understands that all the trouble we are causing and about to cause is because of her. He might not think quite so highly of her anymore. Especially when it begins to hurt his wallet.”

  “She made her bed,” Mutt said.

  An interesting observation, because Brack was thinking exactly that but didn’t consider it appropriate to say.

 
Brother Thomas said, “First things first, mm-hmm.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Vito sat at a desk in his home office talking on the phone with a broker from the West Coast.

  He said, “I’ve got the shipment ready. Six crates, twenty in each crate.”

  “Excellent,” came the voice over the phone.

  As he ended the call and sat the phone on the desk, Regan entered the room, and Vito smiled at his woman.

  She walked behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek. “You look happy.”

  He reached up and took her hands in his. “I am. We’ve got a buyer for the ivory.”

  Regan circled around him and sat in his lap. “Wanna celebrate?”

  Before he could reply, his phone buzzed. Again. He noted it was Townsend and, to Regan, said, “Hold that thought.” He answered the call.

  Townsend said, “Pelton was at my house.”

  Suddenly concerned, Vito said, “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “No. I shot at him but missed on purpose.”

  “Good. We have to let the plan work out.”

  Townsend said, “I hope you know what you’re doing. Personally, I think we need to kill him now before he gets too close. I had the perfect opportunity tonight to get rid of him for good.”

  Vito said, “My business, my plan. You run security. It’s your job to make sure he doesn’t get too close.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Thursday, one a.m.

  Brack stood around the table with Brother Thomas and Mutt discussing their options when Darcy walked in Mutt’s house.

  She kissed Brother Thomas and Mutt on their cheeks and shook Tara’s hand. All Brack got was a nod, as if he were the town leper.

  Mutt said, “This is bad news, girl.”

  Darcy said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Ain’t yo’ fault. But we gotta stop ’em.”

  To Darcy, Brother Thomas said, “I’m afraid I’ve failed to convince them to let the po-lice handle this, mm-hmm.”