Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  “Damn tootin’, son,” the reply as sweet as apple cider. “They’re gone. You drove ’em off.”

  “Good. That’s good,” Davis coughed. He wiped the dribble, took a look.

  Frothy and pink.

  Lung shot. Bullet or frag, he couldn’t tell. It wasn’t bad, since he was still breathing.

  Not good, either.

  “They banged me up some,” he said.

  “Me too,” Charvat said. They traded explanations. “You gonna live?”

  Davis shook his head. Then nodded, trying to be optimistic. “I’ll try my best,” he said. “Legs aren’t working. Arms are all right.”

  “See if you can crawl,” Charvat said.

  Davis was sure he couldn’t. Tried anyway. Made it a foot from the blast-hole. Strained real hard and made another foot.

  “Slow as a constipated goat,” he said.

  “You’re on a goat path, so that makes sense,” Charvat said, trying to move away from the boulders. He got nowhere, a turtle flipped on its back. “I’m stuck. I can bandage your wounds if you can get to me.”

  “Deal,” Davis said. Dynamite kept erupting in his head. His vision swam in and out. He throbbed in places he didn’t know existed. “Does your cell phone work?”

  “No. Shot up. Yours?”

  “It’s on the path between here and you.”

  “Can you get there?”

  “Yeah, but you’d better pray that signal’s good.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Ma Bell,” Charvat said, folding his hand over his heart.

  Davis locked his eyes on the phone. Grunted like he was messing his pants. Moved a foot. Then another. Thought of Superstition. Made a yard.

  “Any chance you saw the man in charge, Derek?”

  “The jefe?” Davis said. He recalled a rangy Mexican with a perpetual scowl, wearing crossed ammo belts. “Yes. Caught a decent look from the ridge.”

  “Could you describe him?”

  Davis did, added the license plate. Charvat whistled.

  “What, you know this guy?” Davis said.

  “Nope. Just pleasantly surprised at your good description. I’ll hire you if you pass the physical.”

  Pass the physical. Davis began laughing. It turned into a hacking cough that brought up pieces of . . . well, he didn’t want to know. Accompanied by a thick, black fog he feared wasn’t actually in the air.

  “Uh, Brian?”

  “Right here.”

  “I’m finding it a little hard to see all of a sudden.”

  Silence.

  “‘Course it’s hard to see, son,” Charvat said gently. “Sandstorm just moved in, doncha know.”

  Davis looked up. The Man in the Moon grinned bright.

  “Yeah, that must be it,” he said.

  He coughed up more blood, kept crawling with his arms, which burned with effort and pain. Now the cell phone was within two yards. One yard. One foot. One inch. He wriggled his swollen hands from under his body and touched the lifesaving device . . .

  Which snapped to attention with a silent blue glow.

  “It works,” Davis said, his voice cracking with awe. “The cell’s got power.”

  “Cool beans, Derek. Does it look like it’ll dial out?”

  He hadn’t actually considered that it wouldn’t. He felt the rest of his dinner climb the stairs . . .

  The phone bleated.

  He jumped.

  It bleated again. He looked at the display, hands trembling.

  WIFE CELL.

  “It’s Sue,” he breathed, wide-eyed. “She’s returning my call.”

  “So, you gonna answer?” Charvat said. “Or make that poor gal leave a message?”

  Derek poked CONNECT with a badly trembling finger - the pain from his wounds was starting to horse him around. He dropped his ear to the phone and heard his wife talking a mile a minute. It was the sound of an angel.

  “Sue,” he grunted as the black fog pulsed at his eyeballs.

  Chicago

  Superstition felt an elbow smash her shoulder as she reached for Bubbles’s door. The unstable orange stilettos launched her sideways, and she banged off a wrought iron fence, mashing her opposite arm so hard that she knew it would purple before she reached the bathroom.

  “Hey, jerk,” she snapped as she regained her balance. “You want a punching bag, go find a gym.”

  The tall, muscled black man who’d shoved her to get in first stared down with eyes as chilly as buckshot. “One more word from you, whitey,” he said, his voice a November grave, “and I’ll tear off your head and shit down your neck.”

  She bristled and started to snap, “Try it, see what happens,” then held up her hands. Knocking him around would be fun, but she really had to pee. One more minute and she’d do it right here in the doorway, swear to God . . .

  Mistaking her reaction for submission, he turned away and pushed through the door. The two men behind him shrugged. It was as close as she’d get to an apology, she figured, because hookers got respect from exactly nobody.

  She watched the trio drift toward the back of the airy room, which wrapped around a thirty-foot mahogany bar. A tidal wave of bar-gabble engulfed her as she navigated the Moorish floor tiles. A hunky young man with three-day stubble smiled her way. The dirty blonde at his elbow shot her eye-daggers, then stepped closer to her prize. Superstition, amused, nodded at both, kept moving. Beautiful people were the norm at Bubbles. The place reflected its owner, one Bubbles Frankenberg, whose real name was Donna but preferred both dramatis personae and chilled Dom Pérignon. Superstition reached the bathroom door, her insides trembling from the strain-

  Four fingers and a thumb grabbed her wrought-iron bruise, making her yelp.

  “Back the way you came, street meat,” growled a man thick with drugstore cologne. “Don’t want your kind pollutin’ the decent folk.”

  Superstition turned to see a bullet-headed bouncer with a ruby in his left ear. “Wow. Did you think that up all by yourself?” she said. “Or read it in a comic book?”

  His jaw twitched with annoyance. “Cracking wise is really bad for your health,” he said, moving in so close that the cologne assaulted all her senses.

  “Or yours,” Superstition said, sneezing. “You’re new here, right?”

  He nodded, suddenly wary. “First night,” he said.

  “Tell Bubbles I said hi,” she said, pushing into the bathroom with her butt.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it. Instead, he lumbered away, adjusting his waistband and muttering under his breath.

  She entered a stall, latched the door, did her business with a tabernacle choir of relief, then called her boss.

  “Hanrahan,” he said.

  “It’s me. I wanted to let you know I’m in position.”

  “Position?” he said, confused. “I thought you were using the-”

  She held the phone next to the bowl and flushed.

  “Har-de-frickin’-har,” Hanrahan said.

  “Frickin’?” she said.

  “The captain says I shouldn’t swear in front of the troops. Says it makes me suboptimal.”

  “Suboptimal?”

  “I think it means ‘big pecker,’” Hanrahan said. “So, you coming?”

  “As soon as I get hold of Derek. He left a message, but I haven’t had time to call back. Do you mind?”

  “You? Asking for permission?”

  “Thought I’d try something new.”

  A snort this time. “You’re full of laughs tonight. Sure, go ahead. We’re still setting up.”

  “Thanks, Loot,” she said, using the dimunitive for Lieutenant.

  Hanrahan was a tall, meaty man, born in Hegewisch, formed on the streets, polished by the Jesuits, and pipelined from junior college to the cops. He had no peer in commanding detectives, but his personal life was the very definition of WTF, dude? Movie-star handsome in a bulky, film noir way, he enjoyed walking on the wild side, which, among other things, meant dati
ng a Chicago Bulls cheerleader, a runway model, and a CIA analyst, all at the same time - while he was married. Predictably, it ended in disaster and divorce court, but he remained cheerful about it, saying “Little Robbie” wanted what it wanted, so what could he do? He was the best boss she’d ever had, though, treating his cops, male or female, gay or straight, color or none, with great respect - and, if needed, some private ass-kicking, which became forgive-and-forget unless the kickee didn’t get the point, in which case he or she found him or herself combing sewer grates for important clues. She’d take a bullet for him, and most of her colleagues shared that assessment.

  “G’wan, call your old man and talk dirty,” Hanrahan elaborated. “Then hurry on down our way. A medical convention just let out, so the fishing looks excellent.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” Superstition said, saluting. Her shiny orange fingernails whipped up and back in Bubbles’s vintage gilded mirrors.

  “You said that respectfully. But I know better.”

  He disconnected.

  Smiling, she hit speed dial ONE. Derek’s phone rang. He picked up. She heard him say “Sue.” She smiled and started to talk but then heard screams from the bar. She couldn’t make out the words, but she knew the unmistakeable tone.

  “Trouble,” she said, her heart beginning to race with adrenaline. “I’ll call you back, hon.” She disconnected and hurried to the door, pulling it open and peering through the gap. One of the men from the doorstep encounter was holding a twelve-gauge pump. He noticed the movement and pointed it at her face. “Come join the fun, white eyes,” he jeered, waving the slaughtergun. “We’d hate you to feel left out.”

  “Omigosh, is this a robbery?” Superstition wailed, praying the squad wasn’t too far away to pick up the microphone under her hair, which Hanrahan used to document her conversations with johns. “What are you three guys doing with guns?”

  Robbery . . . guys . . . guns?

  “Shit,” spat the driver, accelerating their heads into the rests. The shotgun rider called Hanrahan. “Robbery in progress at Bubbles,” he reported. “Superstition’s inside.”

  “Oh, shit,” Hanrahan said.

  “What we said,” Shotgun said. “Three guys with guns. She’s broadcasting live.”

  “Pedal to metal,” Hanrahan said.

  “This is a robbery! Get on the floor!” the man who’d elbowed Superstition shouted as he waved a Desert Eagle, a mammoth steel pistol whose forty-four-caliber bullets carved not holes but tunnels.

  “Move it, whitey,” Shotgun said, jabbing Superstition with the hard black muzzle. She hurried toward the bar as patrons began diving to the floor. Desert Eagle ordered the bartender to clean out the cash register, but the earringed hipster froze like a deer in headlights. Desert Eagle raked his face with the gun, misting the bar with blood and cartilage.

  “Give him whatever he wants,” Bubbles ordered.

  “Smart move, mama,” Desert Eagle said. “Give us the money and nobody gets hurt.”

  “Be advised, undercover officer is inside the bar,” Hanrahan huffed as he sprinted down the service alley behind Bubbles, leaping over potholes and trash. “She’s wearing an orange dress and high heels. Repeat, undercover officer is inside the bar.”

  “Wearing orange dress,” the emergency dispatcher confirmed. “What’s your status?”

  “Five in plainclothes, two minutes out. Tell responding units to run silent. Repeat, no lights and sirens, we don’t want to spook them into opening fire . . .”

  The bouncer flexed his fingers as he reached for his dangling shirttail. Superstition spotted the familiar imprint through his tight black jeans. She caught his eye and shook her head. They only want money, she tried to tell him telepathically. Don’t be a hero and you’ll come out of this alive.

  He gave her a dirty look as he pulled up his shirt. He wrapped his fingers around the checkered brown grips of his pistol and pulled it free of the holster. The third robber spotted it and swung his nine-millimeter pistol.

  “No, don’t shoot!” Superstition yelled, lunging to shove the bouncer to safety as Shotgun and Desert Eagle joined Pistol for the kill.

  “Shots fired!” Hanrahan barked as he ran. “ETA sixty seconds. We’re going in.”

  “All units, active shooters inside bar, plainclothes team entering in sixty seconds,” the dispatcher told the blue tsunami. “Respond Code Three.”

  Sirens lit up across Chicago.

  The crowd erupted as flesh plugs sprayed from the bouncer. “Stay on the floor!” the gunmen screamed. “Throw out your wallets and purses!”

  Instead, the crowd bolted, billiard balls smacked by the white. The unexpected uprising startled the gunmen into redirecting fire. The man with the three-day beard stutter-stepped, then collapsed. A shrieking redhead tried frantically to reattach her blown-off ear. Superstition lowered her head, ran faster. She snatched up the fallen bouncer’s pistol and pumped bullets into Shotgun, who’d turned his back to shoot women off bar stools. He collapsed, blood spraying from the four holes clustered between his shoulder blades.

  Desert Eagle and Pistol swung her way, pulling triggers. She emptied the magazine at them as she leapt, forcing them to break off. She sailed over stools and black granite bar top and crashed into the back mirror, slicing herself from shoulder to elbow. She tumbled to the floor as the gunmen’s bullets blasted wine and whiskey, the glass shelves shattering and falling. Her ears rang from the thunderstorm.

  “Bitch shot Rancey, get her!” she heard Desert Eagle bellow.

  She speed-crawled toward the cubbyhole where she knew Bubbles kept a gun. Glass exploded and booze rained, brown, blue, white, and clear. The shards deepened the ribbons in her knees and hands. She ignored it, kept crawling.

  She reached Bubbles’s well-worn Glock and checked that it was loaded. She quick-glanced between two shattered beer pumps. Saw waitresses gasping for air, dozens of patrons writhing in agony, and the two remaining predators who caused it.

  “Hasta la vista, creeps,” she hissed.

  She rose to a combat crouch and laid the muzzle on Pistol, who was reaching for his dead buddy’s shotgun. He spotted her, jerked back from the twelve with a curse, and whipped his barrel her way. She shredded his heart just as he fired. He corkscrewed to the floor, his final rounds splintering the dense red wood of the bar.

  She swung her muzzle onto Desert Eagle and fired. He jerked out of range, lips in a feral snarl. She ducked as forty-four magnums sizzled back her way, thwacking the bar like steam hammers.

  She crawled to the end. Peeked around. Saw him looking for her. Bad angle to take him down. Looked for options. Saw an overturned table with steel legs and a three-inch granite top. Good cover, ideal firing angle.

  Nine feet of air, here to there.

  She coiled and sprang. He tracked and fired. She landed in a heap as his bullets carved chunks from the protective rock. She earthwormed across the tiles and stuck her head, hands, and gun out the right side of the table. His bullets sent tile chips into her face. She didn’t flinch. Her Glock jumped. Flames spurted. Bullets flew.

  And Desert Eagle collapsed, bleeding from forehead to belly.

  She jumped to her feet and hustled over, ready to resume firing if he was playing possum.

  “Go, go, go!” Hanrahan roared as the team raced into the bar, muzzles up, triggers straining for release.

  “Don’t, don’t, don’t!” Superstition shouted, waving wildly as her squad mates bulldozed through the doors. “They’re down, they’re down, they’re down!”

  Hanrahan jerked his gun front, back, side, side. No bullets. No explosions. Just cries from the wounded and silence from the dead. He called for paramedics, crime scene, crowd control, and the medical examiner. “Are you all right?” he said, racing to Superstition, who was slumping down a blood-streaked wall, looking dazed.

  She blew out her breath. Felt a sticky wetness penetrate her gossamer dress. She patted herself, found no holes. Somebody’s blood. Not hers. She
grimaced, shifted away. Saw cell phone cameras waving like dandelions and tugged down the orange the best she could. Hanrahan handed her his raid jacket. He was so big that it fit her like a blue circus tent, but it kept the looky-loos from photographing her privates . . .

  “I was coming out of the bathroom when they announced the robbery,” she said, voice squeaking from adrenaline. “The bouncer intervened, despite my warning him not to. They killed him, then started on the patrons. Gave me no choice but to open fire.”

  Hanrahan was nodding vigorously. “You did an outstanding job, Detective Davis.” He said it loud for the benefit of the cell phone Tarantinos. “Your quick reaction saved a lot of people from dying tonight . . .”

  She looked at the three gunmen as he continued in that vein. They’d been young and filled with energy. Now they were broken, a child’s doll abused till the plastic disintegrated. Their limbs were loose and floppy, their eyes dull. Blood rivulets sparkled against their cooling, espresso-colored flesh.

  It made her sad, those meandering rivulets. She’d shot people before, and she’d undoubtedly do it again - that was the nature of jobs with guns. Unlike some of her colleagues, who relished the thought of kill-or-be-killed gunfights, she preferred cajoling suspects into giving up, or, failing that, “convincing” them hand-to-hand. But these three called the play, not her, and she wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. She hoped not, anyway. Logic didn’t always fall in lockstep with emotion.

  “Go call Derek,” Hanrahan said gently. “Take all the time you need. I’ll deal with the shoo-flies till you’re ready.”

  Officer-involved shootings were investigated by the police department’s internal affairs unit - the dreaded “shoo-flies” - then again by independent review teams. Superstition had no doubt she’d be cleared. There were a hundred witnesses led by Bubbles Frankenberg, plus the hair-radio recording. But it grated going through the drill at all. There were guns under the killers. Spatter on the walls. Bullets in the bouncer. Didn’t that explain what the hell had happened . . .