Nerves of Steel

by CJ Lyons

  "Found a better vantage point," he said into his radio.

  "I think we should go in now. Nothing's moving up there last half hour, good time to catch them sleeping."

  "Or with their pants down," interjected Summers from his position at the rear of the building. He sounded excited by the prospect, but then Summers was young, his gold shield so fresh it squeaked.

  Drake wanted Lester more than anyone. Taking down Lester would be better than sex--at least better than Drake remembered sex. Last six months, he'd been living like one of those monks up the mountain in Loretto. All part of getting his life back together. Seeing that Lester got what he deserved was a big piece of that. But still....

  "There's a kid in there," he told the others. With his binoculars he could see a red jacket, too small for an adult, hanging on the back of the door. Beside it was a backpack emblazoned with the iridescent green figure of the Incredible Hulk.

  "What kid?" Summers asked. "I didn't see any kid."

  "If there is a kid," Kwon put in, "he'll be in the rear bedroom. We can contain him."

  "Too risky. We wait."

  "Could be fucking forever," Summers muttered.

  "Don't worry, Eric," Kwon assured him. "Lester's got to come out for more Viagra sooner or later." The caffeine and adrenalin jazzed cops chuckled.

  Drake was silent. He waited, rain puddling under his wool peacoat, soaking his jeans and canvas hightops until he couldn't move without squishing. He watched, despite the fact that he'd been averaging less than four hours of sleep a night and his eyelids scratched like fifty-grit sandpaper.

  He blinked against the sting of sleet against his face. Lester's window blurred, then refocused once more. Lester left the front bedroom and walked naked in front of the curtainless window.

  Yes, come on down, Drake urged. Time to play the Price is Right. Or better yet, Truth or Consequences. Because he had a little truth for good ole Lester--you didn't shoot at a cop, miss him and hit a van full of kids and walk away on a technicality without sure as hell paying the consequences. Damn, it was going to feel good to nail Lester. It was the drug dealer's third strike and he was O-U-T.

  Lester stepped into his pants. Drake raised his radio. "Actor's getting dressed. Looks like show time."

  Kwon and the other team members acknowledged. Drake crept through shadows to the end of the alley, until he stood directly across from the tenement, his gaze never leaving the window. Lester reached for his shirt, his jacket.

  Come on, come on.

  Lester jerked upright, his mouth open, calling to someone as he fumbled through his jacket pockets.

  Lester's strawberry sauntered from the bedroom, wearing only an unbelted chartreuse kimono. Her expression went from seductive to fearful in one quick blink. The words "double cross" and "whore" filtered down to the street. The woman was speaking rapidly, backing away. Lester struck her with an open handed slap, and she went down. He hauled her up, shook her, hit her again; blood flew from her nose. Lester twisted his fingers in her cornrows, drew his gun and pointed it at her face.

  A little boy in Superman PJ's came out of the hallway, rubbing his eyes. He saw the woman and ran over, tugged on Lester's arm, his mouth open in a scream.

  Drake flew across the street, pounding through the puddles, up the stairs leading into the building. He took the slippery concrete steps two at a time, shouldered through the heavy glass door, shouting into his radio for backup.

  His chest was tight, his grip on his Glock sweaty as he raced up the steps to the third floor apartment. Drake braced himself, waiting to hear a gunshot, certain that once again he was going to be too late.

  CHAPTER 3

  "Wait for backup, damn you, Drake!" The voice shouting from the radio, loud enough to be heard over the pounding of his heart and his feet, was Kwon's. Drake skidded to a stop outside the apartment door, caught his breath.

  There was a kid on the other side. And a woman. And a man with a gun.

  SOP in a hostage situation was to call in the boys from Special Response. Unless there were civilians in imminent danger. Drake leaned against the wall, straining to listen. He heard a woman crying—or was it the little boy? Sounded like imminent danger to him.

  He'd love to bust in and shoot the bastard, take him out of the game permanently, but Lester was his only lead to the source of the FX flooding the streets. Drake needed him alive.

  Kwon reached the top of the steps, put a hand on Drake's shoulder while she murmured into her radio, checking on the rest of the team's positions.

  A woman's scream pierced the flimsy door, cut short by a heavy thud. The sound of breaking glass followed.

  "Where is it, bitch?" Lester bellowed.

  It was totally against regs, but there was one sure way to draw Lester's attention away from the civilians. Lester had a hard-on for Drake, knew Drake was behind his impending downfall. If he busted through that door, there was no way the dealer would refuse the bait.

  "I'm going in," he told Kwon. He squeegeed water dripping from his hair out of his eyes, wiped his hands on a dry patch of T-shirt, and adjusted his Kevlar.

  "No. We wait." Kwon was meticulous, almost as by the book as Dimeo.

  "When I go in, Lester will turn on me. You get the kid and mom out."

  For once Drake was thankful for the Housing Authority's penny pinching. The door was so cheap, Lester's shouting had it rattling in its frame. Drake raised his Glock, nodded to Kwon, and popped the door open with a well-placed kick. It dangled crooked on its hinges and scraped across the pine floor as he pushed through. Kwon followed him.

  "Lester, old buddy, old pal," Drake called out, focusing the drug dealer's attention and gun on him, while Kwon moved behind him. His gaze raked across the room. The boy looked to be okay, huddled in the far corner, crying. The woman was down but breathing. He stayed near the door, giving Kwon more room to work so she wouldn't be at risk of crossing his line of fire.

  "We gotta talk, man," he continued his singsong patter, ignoring the Taurus Raging Bull Lester aimed at him. Not easy, given the revolver's six inch barrel.

  The room reeked of marijuana and Southern Comfort. White gleamed all around Lester's pupils, and the overhead light bulb reflected off sweat beading across his forehead. Lester was smiling, a dopey grin, all teeth, that made Drake wonder if he'd broken his rule and sampled some of his own product.

  "Neighbors complaining about you making too much noise." Drake's focus narrowed to the few feet separating him and the drug dealer, alert to the slightest shift in Lester's weight, tightening of his muscles, flick of an eye. He forced his smile to mirror the drug dealer's.

  Lester stumbled toward Drake, ignoring the bloody woman Kwon dragged out of the line of fire. Definitely high on something. Lester was crazy enough to take potshots at a cop on a crowded street when he was stone cold sober. How would he act now? Drake's finger curled around the Glock's trigger guard, prepared to send Lester to the morgue if he had to.

  "Drake, you lil' fucker. Been a while. Thought they finally fired your drunken ass."

  Lester waved his cannon of a gun, aiming it at intimate parts of Drake's anatomy. Drake swallowed back his joke about the size of a man's weapon. State Lester was in, he might take it the wrong way, but watching Lester lovingly stroke the chrome barrel of the Taurus, it was damned hard to resist.

  "You wear that thing to bed? What happened to the TEC-9 you used to carry?"

  The drug dealer's smile widened. Dudes loved talking about their guns. "Jammed on me one time too many. 'Sides, I'm a big man, got big needs, know what I mean?"

  Kwon closed the bedroom door, the civilians safely behind it, her own weapon now aimed at Lester. Drake could hear the rest of the team running up the steps behind him. He didn't turn to look. Lester and his foot long, bad boy revolver had his complete attention.

  "Guess'n maybes you don't," Lester continued, his voice slurring. "Heard how your bitch died on ya."

  Enough of this shit. Slowly, Drake holster
ed his weapon, extended his hand, palm up, toward Lester. "C'mon Lester, you can insult me all you want on the ride over to the House."

  "Don't think so." Lester raised his gun, his hand shaking so badly Drake was surprised he didn't drop it. The Taurus weighed a good three and a half pounds. "You're a hard mo'fucker to kill, Drake," he said, his words strangled, difficult to understand. "Guess I'll hafta do it myself."

  "What the hell? Drop the gun, Lester. Unless you wanna die. That your game—you too chicken to come talk to me? I thought you were the big guy on the streets, maybe I was wrong. Maybe you've got a boss, someone who scares the shit out of you."

  As he spoke, Drake tried to keep the drug dealer's attention and gun focused on him. He edged forward and to one side. Lester looked confused, his mouth clamping down in a frown as if he was having a hard time understanding Drake. "That how it is, Lester?"

  When he was in range, Drake rushed forward, crossing Kwon's line of fire, and grabbed Lester's arm. The Taurus went off, the boom of the .45 Magnum deafening at such close range. Lester pitched forward. Drake elbowed him hard over the kidney, sidestepped as the other man fell to the ground. He yanked the Taurus from Lester's slack grasp.

  Drake ignored the fist-sized hole the bullet had punched through the hard wood floor, safed the long-barreled revolver, and turned to Kwon. She glared at him. Her hands trembled as she holstered her own weapon and yanked the Taurus from him.

  "What kind of idiotic stunt was that, moving in front of me? I could've shot you myself," she said as Summers and the rest of the team swarmed into the room.

  "Glad you didn't."

  "Too much paperwork. You're not worth it."

  Lester was still face down, Summers reading him his rights, when his body began convulsing as if possessed. Summers jumped off the dealer.

  "Fucking A! He pissed himself." Summers flicked the fluid from his hand, the grimace on his face making him look younger than the twenty-something he was.

  "Turn him over, check his breathing." Drake squatted to help Summers roll Lester's writhing body. He smelled the rank odor of human feces. Lester's eyes were rolled in the back of his head, the whites of his eyeballs blossoming with the scarlet plumes of broken blood vessels. His lips were blue and his mouth was open, but no sound came from it.

  "Judas H." Drake tried to hold Lester's head still long enough to open his airway, but the force of the seizures kept bouncing it off the hardwood floor. Then everything stopped.

  Summers was straddling the drug dealer, still doing CPR when the paramedics arrived several minutes later.

  "Give it up. He's dead, man," they told the detective.

  Drake watched as Summers did a backward scuttle, placing as much distance as possible between himself and the dead body. Summers, a lean, six-two black man, looked as if he might throw up. Drake gave him a break and ushered him out into the hall before he added to the mess in the crime scene.

  "I never seen anything, I mean I've seen DB's before, some of 'em really rank, but that..." Summers trailed off, wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans.

  Drake leaned against the wall, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, caught a good whiff of himself and grimaced. Worse was how he felt: soggy, bruised, ancient.

  He rammed his hands into the sodden fabric of his jacket pockets. Ice-cold water slid under his collar and down his spine as he stared impassively at the drug dealer's body. Leave it to Lester to die without telling them what he took or where the hell he got it. Selfish bastard.

  With Lester dead, Drake was out of leads. And if there was more of this shit out on the streets, they were in big trouble.

  CHAPTER 4

  Cassie wrapped her fingers around the cold steel of the bed rail as she walked alongside the gurney transporting her Jane Doe to the ICU. Jane Doe's resuscitation had left her exhausted and she leaned on the gurney for support as much as she helped to push it.

  The glass doors of the ICU swished open. They steered Jane Doe to bed space four, her new home. Nurses and respiratory techs swarmed over her gaunt form, transferring her to the bed, attaching licorice whip monitor leads, switching IV lines, connecting her to the ventilator.

  "We've got it, Dr. Hart," one of the nurses said after bumping into Cassie as she reached to turn on the overhead monitor.

  Cassie edged to the foot of the bed where she wouldn't interfere with the well-rehearsed choreography. After spending the last two hours fighting for Jane Doe's life, she wasn't about to abandon her now. "Her last core temp was still only ninety-five."

  "I know. I ordered a bear-hugger warmer. As soon as I get her situated, I'll hook it up."

  "And neuro will want a continuous EEG."

  "Already paged them." The nurse pivoted, placing herself between Cassie and Jane Doe. "We'll take good care of her, Dr. Hart."

  "Thanks. I know you will. I'll check on her this evening before my shift starts." Satisfied that Jane Doe was in good hands, Cassie squeezed the girl's foot in encouragement and retreated to the nurses' station to finish her charting.

  She searched her pocket for a pen and chanced upon the twisted baggie of drugs she had taken from Jane Doe. A stack of zipper-lock bags used to transport lab specimens sat on the corner of the counter near the requisition forms. Cassie grabbed one and sealed the plastic bag with its contraband inside. Ignoring her charting, she stared at her enemy.

  Innocent looking pale green pills, each with the power to destroy a life. Of course, the kids on the street never saw FX in its pure form. It was already ground down, adulterated with mannitol, baking soda, lord only knew what else, then re-pressed into tablets bearing street names like Storm and Funky Shit. One enterprising dealer had combined FX with ephedra and called his creation "Kennywood" after the local amusement park famous for its roller coasters.

  Cassie's fist tightened around the bag. She'd lost three kids to that particular variant until word got out on the street about a "bad ride".

  After watching Richard, her ex-husband, descend into the black hole of addiction, Cassie had tried to learn everything she could about the why's and how's of drug abuse. She still couldn't understand playing Russian roulette with the product of an illicit chemist's imagination--half the kids she treated had no idea what they actually took.

  Her gaze returned to Jane Doe, now dwarfed by the machines keeping her alive. Why would a beautiful girl throw her life away like that? What was she running from that was so horrible that dying became a viable option?

  Anger seared through her. The waste. Young kids, grown men, professionals like Richard—she clamped down on the anger and the thought. Richard wasn't her worry anymore, she hadn't even seen him in a year, yet somehow he continued to infiltrate her life, leaving her with unanswered questions, doubts about her own part in what happened to him—to them--fear that she was destined to repeat her mistakes.

  A queasy feeling not unlike the claustrophobia she'd felt in the helicopter churned through her. She took a deep breath, held it for a count of five, then released it, hoping to banish her fears with it. It helped. A little. She forced her attention back to the bag of FX.

  Protocol called for the charge nurse to lock any drugs in the narcotics cabinet until the police arrived. But she was currently busy with morning report. Using her fingernail, Cassie traced the markings etched into the back of the FX tablets.

  "Son of a bitch."

  The ward clerk glared at her outburst in the otherwise still and quiet ICU, but she ignored him. She held the bag up, scrutinizing the pills. There were twenty-seven of them, all imprinted with "3RMC". Three Rivers Medical Center.

  To hell with protocol. She swiveled in her chair, slamming her elbow against the counter, her anger and surprise drowning out any pain.

  The FX that had almost killed Jane Doe came from right here, from Cassie's own hospital.

  Abandoning her paperwork, she pocketed the FX, glanced at the clock, and hurried through the doors. Seven-thirty, her shift was over, but Fran Weaver's was just begi
nning.

  Cassie jogged down four flights of stairs to the basement. Here, amid the bang and hiss of ductwork and pipes, was the concrete tunnel that led to the Annex, the oldest part of the medical center.

  The inpatient pharmacy was temporarily housed here while their permanent facility in the main tower was renovated and enlarged. Instead of the Bunsen burners and microscopes Cassie once used as a medical student, the black laboratory benches were now stacked with wire baskets brimming with medications.

  Fran Weaver sat at her computer, sorting patient orders from the night before. The pharmacy assistant looked up with one of her perennial smiles. Fran had helped Cassie several times with difficult cases, once even rushing additional drugs up to the ER after several kids had been sprayed by bullets during a drive-by shooting in East Liberty last summer. Some drug dealer aiming at a cop, the police had said.

  When their schedules overlapped, Fran, Cassie and Adeena Coleman, a social worker at Three Rivers, often got together. They'd gorge themselves on Primanti Brothers' take out, Fran and Adeena bemoaning the Pittsburgh dating scene while Cassie kept silent, uncomfortable with the idea of letting any man back into her life.

  "Don't tell me you're flying in this weather," Fran said.

  "Not since around five this morning." Cassie perched on the edge of the desk and tossed the FX to Fran. The halogen desk lamp made the pale green pills wrapped in plastic glisten like candy. "They're some kind of counterfeit, right? Please tell me this shit didn't come from here."

  Fran whipped her head around, looking for her boss. "Hush. You know Mr. Krakov hates swearing."

  A bonus in Cassie's mind. She didn't like Krakov. Something about the arrogant pharmacist reminded her of Richard, her ex-husband. But this morning she had better things to focus on than pissing off Fran's boss. "Just tell me where these came from. It's important."

  "Each lot of fentephex is stamped with a tracking code." Fran scrutinized the pills, cleared her computer screen. Her fingers flew over the keys. She nodded as the screen flashed with information. "These are ours, from inpatient stock received last week. Where did you get them? Every pill is accounted for, both here and on the floor."