II
Mallory flipped the card over, and found just one word:
Love
Next he slid the index cards from the male. The first also bore a Roman numeral:
II
Each of the rest also offered just one word per card:
that
should
not
be.
Gunner looked up from his notes. “Okay, guys, what the fuck?”
Danvers shook his head slightly. “Those are my sentiments exactly, detective, though I would refrain from using profanity. We are professionals, after all.”
“Okay Lieu, but I’ve just about had it with this crazy son of a—“
Mallory looked up from cards. His eyes widened.
The veteran with the bad mustache stood facing into the room. He looked at Mallory, nodded up with his chin, just once, then raised his Glock with both hands and began firing.
TWENTY-TWO
With an agility that never failed to shock Mallory, Gunner leaped into the bathroom. Mallory grabbed Danvers and launched both of them over the carefully arranged corpses, across the bed where the woman was positioned. Danvers let momentum carry him behind the far side of the bed. Mallory got his feet under him, landing atop the pillows, then leaped across the other bed, landing hard against the adjacent wall, the other side of which was the bathroom where he hoped Gunner was safe.
Bullets ripped through the room in a seemingly unending roar, though the deafening chaos actually lasted only seconds. In that brief, hellish moment, chunks of wood ripped from the desk; the mirror shattered; a standing lamp blew apart. Long beige curtains danced, scorched holes marring forever their tranquility. The hard-working air conditioner was destroyed. Above it, the large window exploded outwards.
A sudden silence descended, except for a pronounced ringing in their ears that made it sound like they were underwater. Nothing seemed to move, which suggested he was still out there, maybe reloading.
“Stay clear!” Pressed against a wall, Mallory, Glock raised, edged to the corner, prepared to return fire. He chanced a quick peak, then a longer look.
No one was in the door frame.
Danvers, positioned at the end of the far bed, waited, ready to unload should their attacker reappear. From the bathroom door, Gunner eased his Glock into position.
The silence thickened, pressing on their nerves. Gunner held up one hand. Throwing himself tight against the left side wall, he slowly approached the open door, gun stretched out before him, both hands gripping it tightly, ready to fire.
Danvers scrambled over the bed, joining Mallory at the near wall. He was favoring his right leg, but shrugged it off when Mallory noticed.
Gunner reached the door. Leading with his weapon, he ducked his head out, then pulled back. He threw himself against the opposite wall, used the same technique to check the other end of the hall. He shook his head. No shooter in sight.
Mallory and Danvers joined Gunner, who glanced at the hall floor, screamed “Fuck!” He then kicked a nearby wall, leaving a large dent. Mallory looked down, then slammed his fist against the door. On the carpet where the fake cop had opened fire there lay a single index card. The card bore a Roman numeral:
V
Gunner spat, “Motherfucker.”
“That was our guy.” Danvers held the radio near his face, reporting shots fired, no wounded, then calling for the hotel to be locked down to prevent the suspect’s escape. His face showed distress. The media routinely listened to police band radio, and knew NYPD codes. The lieutenant had just created tomorrow’s lead story for every paper, television, and radio broadcast. The mayor’s office was going to want his head.
Up and down the hall, doors opened slightly, guests peaking out, eyes full of fear. Danvers held up his badge. “This hall is now a crime scene. Please stay in your rooms. Officers will come to take your statements soon.”
Gunner stared at the room numbers. “The bastard warned us and we missed it!”
“What warned us?” Mallory asked.
Gunner punched the door, right on the numbers. “One-zero-one-three? Ten-thirteen, as in ‘officer needs assistance’! Motherfucker’s a funny little bastard, ain’t he?”
“Let’s move.” Danvers led them briskly down the hall, passing a bank of elevators. “There is no way the shooter waited for one to arrive.”
Gunner nodded. “A room’s risky, too. Key cards can be a pain in the ass.”
Suddenly, a chime rang out, announcing the arrival of one of the elevators. All three whirled. Danvers dropped to one knee. Gunner pressed himself against the left wall. Mallory braced himself against the right. All aimed their weapons at the opening elevator door. Fingers tensed over highly sensitive triggers.
Three dark forms popped out, brandishing weapons of their own.
Each trio swung their guns toward the other.
Danvers screamed, “Police! Don’t Move!”
The elevator trio screamed, “Police! Don’t Move!”
“Stand down, officers! I am Lieutenant Danvers!” There was no mistaking the edge in that voice. The uniforms stood down. Danvers and his detectives did not.
“Identify yourselves immediately,” Mallory called.
“Sergeant Leo Bloom,” the first officer answered, holding his weapon at his side. With his free hand, he gestured to the officers behind him to his left, then right. “Officers Joe Hynes and Moses Herzog are with me. Mike Geraghty, Barney Keirnan, and Garry Owen are working their way up the stairs directly behind you, Lieutenant. Alf Bergan, Bob Doran, and Dennis Breen are working their way up the other stairs.” The sergeant paused, then added. “It’s been a hell of a day, sir. We got one down. Jumped, Lieutenant. Officer Stevie Dedalus. Serious head injury, might be concussed. We found him at the bottom of the stairs behind you. His uniform coat, hat and gun belt were taken, sir.”
“The shooter’s posing as a cop now, but he’s been here like 24 hours,” Mallory said. “This guy is brave enough to stick around observing our operation all this time.
Bloom added: “Dedalus pulled a double shift; got jumped going to his car.”
Danvers addressed everyone. “Find this man.” The detectives lowered their weapons halfway, moved to flank the stairwell access door.
“Secure this hall. No one leaves,” Danvers ordered the officers. “We’ve locked this placed down. Our shooter’s got no way out.” He moved to the left side of the stairwell door. Mallory kept his body against the wall, stretched, turned the knob, pushed the door open. Right then, the fire alarm sounded, a loud bleating coupled with flashing emergency lights. The hall flooded with people emerging from their rooms, confused, afraid. Once they saw the officers’ weapons, they plunged into full panic, running for the exits.
Gunner shouted to his supervisor. “Lieu, you may have spoken too soon.”
TWENTY-THREE
Danvers pushed passed Mallory, launching himself down the quickly crowding stairs. “Police! Move to your right!” The lieutenant shoved people aside, or spun them around, inspecting their eyes.
The detectives descended, Mallory offering lame apologies. No one could hear him through the din, a chaotic mingle of panicked cries and angry curses. By the fifth floor, the stairwell was so crowded, it was almost impossible to get through. Danvers pushed more aggressively. Gunner called ahead in an attempt to clear the Lieu’s path. “Police emergency! Move to your right! Police emergency! Coming through!”
His path clearer, Danvers shouted into the radio. “Officers in the lobby do not let anyone leave. Repeat: no one is to leave. Uniforms included.”
“Sir?” The response seemed amplified in the stairwell. “Law states we must evacuate. We have got confirmation on the nineteenth floor.”
“Then corral them outside, but no one leaves!”
The nervous but cooperating civilians now regressed to full panic, surging forward. Mallory and Gunner were slammed against the stair railing, carried forward by the fleeing tide. “This is
crazy,” Mallory shouted. “People are going to get hurt.”
Gunner shouted back. “Cover your ears.” He raised the index finger and thumb of his right hand to his lips, positioned them just inside his mouth, and released a whistle loud enough to make a banshee cringe. Everyone within earshot ducked, grabbed their ears, and fell silent.
“THIS IS THE NYPD,” Gunner bellowed. “FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND THE SAFETY OF ALL THOSE AROUND YOU, WALK, DO NOT RUN, TO THE EXITS. REPEAT: WALK, DO NOT RUN, TO THE EXITS.”
The hotel guests slowed their pace, stopped shoving, and regained some semblance of order. A few started praying.
Sometime during the 10-minute descent, the detectives lost Lieutenant Danvers. They expected to find him by the stairwell exit, but were confronted instead with a crush of panicked guests much thicker than the mass streaming out behind them. Easily 500 people pressed through the lobby, inching toward the over-extended exits onto Sixth Avenue. Some were dressed, but most were in pajamas, or robes, or, in the case of one stunning brunette, a distractingly sheer negligee.
As the guests passed the registration desks many hammered the counter:
“This is outrageous!” “We better not be charged for this day!”
“I expect my entire stay to be comped!”
“There better be a fire or I’ll have you fired!”
“At these rates, fire shouldn’t be a possibility!” Mallory had seen the rates; he agreed.
Most people, however, were just trying to get to the lobby doors. Dozens more per minute were exiting the stairwells. Many more were already outside. Mallory could see crowds and crowds of them. Ironically, most of them were smoking; glowing cigarette tips illuminating angry faces in a hellish glow. He turned his attention to the uniformed officers trying vainly to maintain order; none wore the mustache.
“This guy is way smarter than I’d like him to be,” Mallory told his partner.
“Worse,” Gunner spat. “The crazy bastard is willing to do anything.”
“Keep your eyes open.”
“For who? Any of these people could be him.”
“For the lieutenant.”
The detectives worked their way through the lobby, but Danvers was nowhere in sight. Flashing badges to get past uniformed officers working crowd control, they stepped into the street, and into a surprisingly dense cloud of second-hand smoke. The smell reminded Mallory of mornings at home while growing up; Pop in his chair, coffee in one hand, a lit Lucky Strike in the other. Every morning Mallory, eight, 10, 12 years old, would duck under that thick gray cloud trailing out behind his father to get to his beloved breakfast cereals. Even after all these years, he still hated that smell.
“We need to regroup,” Mallory said. “This guy has us reacting rather than working the facts. We need time to talk it through, study his notes, rethink everything.”
“I’m with ya, buddy,” Gunner murmured. “But it looks like those moves are gonna haveta wait.” He pointed to their left.
Mallory locked in on Danvers. He was heading for them but his gait was hesitant.
“Lieu?”
Danvers’ wandering eyes panned the crowd, eventually focusing loosely on Mallory. “The rules don’t apply here.”
The detectives exchanged looks. Mallory offered, “Lieu, we just need to get this under control first.”
Danvers’ eyes kept scanning the crowd. “This is part of his plan, part of his strategy. He… wants to intimidate.”
“Yes. He wants his power acknowledged. That’s why he leaves the note cards.”
Gunner interrupted. “But he didn’t get to do it the same way just now. He couldn’t write—”
Danvers seethed. “We were the notes up there!” He focused completely on the detectives now. “He’s left cards at every step. Even here.”
Mallory and Gunner stopped cold. “What?”
Danvers’ eyes had gone blank again. “He was in perfect control the whole time.”
Mallory gently took Danvers’s elbow. “Lieu, what are we talking about here?”
“Index cards,” Danvers murmured. “His M.O. is so thorough we don’t even know when we’re onto a new crime scene.” Out of his pocket he took an index card. On one side it had a Roman numeral:
VI
Mallory carefully turned it over. The other side read:
Turn back, detectives.
Do not pass into the lower depths.
You have already crossed the River Styx.
Turn back before it is too late for you, as well.
Mallory held the card by its edges. “Where did he leave this, Lieu?”
“He left it… with me.”
Mallory and Gunner immediately flanked Danvers, angling out so that each protected the others’ backs. They made a visual sweep of the shadowy crowd, guns drawn, searching for anyone watching them too closely, trying to hide, or acting oddly; the process was as comforting as treading water in the middle of the ocean, searching for a shark.
A bottle fell out of the dark above the streetlights, a flaming rag stuck in its mouth. Molotov cocktail.
“Oh, God, he’s still here,” Mallory gasped.
The bottle shattered on a heavy, older woman, igniting her back, splashing onto others. Many burned, rolling in agony, one died right in front of the detectives. More flaming bottles plunged out of the darkness. Panic spread faster than the flames. Fleeing mobs stomped over those who had fallen, pushed aside the old or frail, kicked kids out of the way.
The detectives ran deeper into the chaos to help the burning civilians.
TWENTY-FOUR
Fourteen officers were injured restoring order. Four people died from burns, 22 others were treated for burn-related injuries. Seventeen people, including four kids, were trampled to death.
The media taped all of it for broadcast. The morning news shows labeled Central Park West in the mid-90s a “Manhattan War Zone.” Mallory thought that for once they got it right.
Fire Department investigators found evidence that three rooms had been torched, all with homemade, modified Molotov cocktails: liquor bottles filled with gas. Two were rigged with rags and cigarettes serving as timing mechanisms; these set off the fire alarms. The other had been set ablaze after a window overlooking Central Park West had been duct taped, then smashed. It was believed that this was the room from which the Molotov cocktails were thrown.
Tizzie ran information to Mallory and Gunner, eventually confirming that Officer Dedalus was in serious but stable condition; the adulterers were identified as Mrs. Joyce Mangan of Passaic County, New Jersey, and Jack Bazaar of Rockland County, New York. He was an executive at Cooper-Pierce Research, some kind of investment company with offices in the 40s. She was older than the young stud; Tizzie said the squad was researching what their connection was “besides being hump buddies.”
Periodically they’d cross paths with Danvers, who was also covering the entire hotel as C.O. of the investigation. Conferring only demonstrated that none of their efforts led them closer to their guy.
Meanwhile, the media was swarming, lined up outside the hotel, taping, conducting interviews with irate hotel guests, scared employees, breaking into regular broadcasts all day, reporting any glimpse of the investigation, each update blasting the efforts of the NYPD.
Additional hours were spent struggling through a staggering pile of paperwork, more than made sense, more than they could ever possibly use, and yet only about half of what would officially be required. They were so blown out by the time Danvers made them go home, Mallory and Gunner stood numb in the garage for long minutes before they could remember where their car was parked.
It was almost 7 p.m. by the time he pulled into his driveway and became Dad again.
He kissed Gina gently before the impact of Max running into his legs jarred them apart. He reached down and hugged the boy to him. “Hey, Maxie.”
Gina held his gaze. “I was worried. The news said….”
“They exaggerate everything,” he lied,
hugging her. “Where’s Kieran?”
“He’s playing some video baseball game. Max wanted no part of that.”
Max had plans that centered on a red and black ball designed to look like a lady bug. “Dad, I kick it and you chase it and I run and you get me.”
Exhausted as he was, how could he refuse a plan like that? “You think you can take me?”
“Sorry, but you’re losing, Dad!”
Gina laughed, moved toward the open front door. Even ajar it was ugly. “Good luck, hon. I’ll go put dinner on.”
With glee in his eyes, Max kicked the lady bug ball with all the power in his tiny legs. Mallory let it get past him just for the giggle he would earn from his favorite wisenheimer. He gave slow chase, then bobbled the ball theatrically. Max’s laughter touched everything around them as he ran all over the yard, haphazard and carefree, softening the day like a rainbow after a vicious storm.
Mallory finally bent to scoop up the ball. Something flashed by the corner of his eye, on the other side of the lawn. No way Max was that fast. He looked toward the blur.
It was a bulldog. None of the neighbors had one, as far as Mallory knew. And this ugly little thing was bounding straight for Max. That pug face, those small, sharp, exposed bottom teeth, filled Mallory with a sudden dread.
Max turned his gloriously smiling face around to check Dad’s progress. The gruesome bulldog rushed right into his line of sight. Max screamed, the terror in his voice ripping right through Mallory’s heart. Crying freely now, the boy ran toward the stoop. He bellowed, unaware of what he was saying. “GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
Gina rushed out, shaken by his shouts, confused. Mallory grabbed Max, threw their son right at her. Max hit Gina square in the chest, sending them both back into the house, the rickety storm door slamming in front of them.
Mallory whipped around, the dog already almost on him. He leaned down, a stupid move if the dog decided to lunge, and growled incoherent rage, his hand reaching for his gun. The bulldog turned, fled back across the lawn. It stopped at the edge of Mallory’s property, looked back directly at him, cocked its ugly head to one side, and took a dump right on the lawn. Then the dog seemed to nod up with his chin, just once, before trotting away.
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