Troubleshooter

by Austin Camacho

  Along with the first rays of sunshine, a white Volvo 850 GLT came to Southeast Washington D.C. Its purring motor became the dominant sound on the block when it pulled up directly across the street from number twenty-three thirteen, but it soon died down. Inside sat six men, identically dressed in black jeans and tee shirts. Hannibal, in the front passenger seat, turned to his team with an excitement born of confidence that payback was at hand.

  “All right gentlemen, let’s do it just the way we planned it.”

  The dark man Hannibal called Chipmunk Cheeks had returned to his lookout position. Hannibal assumed that, confronted with police or superior numbers, his job was to run inside and alert everyone to hide their drugs. Surely only lack of understanding made him hesitate.

  He stood slowly and watched as six men stepped leisurely from the Volvo. The car’s trunk popped open, and each man reached into it before stepping up onto the sidewalk.

  Hannibal had done them up right, following Colin Powell’s theory that an overwhelming show of force often meant less conflict. A late night visit to Eddy Frasier’s home had yielded everything he needed to impress anyone who saw them. Each team member wore a flak vest. Each man held a black riot baton, except Sarge and Hannibal. Sarge held his own baseball bat like an old, trusted friend.

  Hannibal’s left fist was wrapped around a twelve-gage riot gun. At Frasier’s suggestion, it was the Magtech Model 586P combat shotgun. Hannibal swung the six shot pump gun’s barely legal nineteen inch barrel across the back of his neck and stood just off the curb. Sarge moved directly in front of him. Virgil stood on Hannibal’s left, while Quaker went to his right. Timothy took a position behind Virgil, while Ray watched Quaker’s back. Once in this formation they stepped forward as one man, stopping just before the bottom of the stoop.

  “All right, son,” Sarge called up, “hit the bricks. You don’t want none of this.” When the guard picked up his bat, Sarge swung the head of his into his left fist. The smack sound jolted the watchman into action. He vaulted the side of the stoop, hit the grass, rolled, and darted down the street.

  Hannibal glanced around as the team mounted the sandstone steps. In neighboring buildings windows opened and closed. Hands pulled drapes away from a few windows. He felt good. Their appearance posted notice to the whole neighborhood that they meant business. And his anger rose when he stepped on a bloodstain he himself left on those steps two days before.

  Sarge wrapped a hand around the doorknob and looked over his shoulder. Hannibal guessed the old NCO was checking his team for nervousness, fear, lack of confidence. He would see a good tension level, Hannibal knew, but nothing to worry about.

  “This is it, men,” Sarge said. “We drive for the top and flush downward. Stay together. And if you’re in the rear, watch the rear. Oh, and, er, follow the boss’ instructions.”

  Hannibal and Sarge exchanged smiles. Taking a deep breath, Sarge shoved the door open, swinging around with it, holding his bat vertically with both hands, as if it were a rifle at port arms. Hannibal swept the hall with his shotgun at waist level. No response. Just like last time, it was likely that no one knew they were there.

  The smell of drugs was everywhere. Early morning heat kept an air of unwashed humanity hanging in the building. Moans from people who never really sleep well pried into his ears, unasked, like some remote form of rape.

  He felt fluttering wings in his stomach again, the same ones he felt but always denied when he used to walk through a crowded lecture hall with the Vice President. That feeling of being surrounded by unknown danger, knowing no one could defend against it all but knowing it was his job to try.

  Inside, the building was as quiet as a morgue at midnight. The group climbed both flights of stairs without seeing an unfriendly face, followed by only the sound of their own footsteps. At the top, Sarge moved to the first room on the right. The sound of rap artists leaked under the door. They were talking at high speed about abusing women, using drugs and shooting strangers. Sarge looked at Hannibal, who nodded. Yes, this one was occupied.

  Again Sarge stepped inside, his bat held at high port. Hannibal thrust his head forward, just far enough to see the bald man with the crinkly beard snap his fingers and continue working on a VCR. A wave of deja vu hit him as a roaring growl came from the next room.

  Fully prepared, Hannibal still barely took action in time. The gigantic pit bull moved like a long brown streak across the floor, jaws dripping. By the time Hannibal pumped his weapon the beast was airborne, targeting his throat. The blast was a deafening thunderclap, the recoil surprisingly light. Barely a meter away, the dog’s head all but disappeared, its body flung the length of the room.

  Only after the fact did Hannibal’s stomach clench at the thought of what he had just done. The dog, he knew, was an innocent, turned by men into a dangerous killer beast. Even in self-defense he hated to destroy an innocent animal.

  The dog owner’s howl echoed the pit bull’s as he leaped over his worktable. Sarge’s body pivoted, with his right fist around the bottom of his bat’s handle and his left against its center. With a small, economical movement, he swung its head into the bald man’s gut. When his target doubled over, Sarge grabbed his shoulder and thrust him through the door. Timothy shoved him toward the stairs, shouting “Get your ass out of here, man.”

  With the shotgun’s blast, the building burst into activity like a slapped hornet’s nest. But inside that top flat, all was still. Hannibal stepped slowly forward, resenting the hairs standing erect on the back of his neck. He and Sarge moved through the rooms one at a time. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Virgil and Quaker stayed at the door they had entered, watching their backs. Ray and Timothy waited outside the door, watching the doors across the hall and the stairway.

  Hannibal and Sarge swept the apartment quickly, making sure that no one remained inside. At the other end Sarge opened the last door into the hall. He looked back toward the others and raised a palm, their prearranged signal indicating that all was clear. Hannibal stepped out behind Sarge, his gun now aimed at the floor. Ray and Timothy walked confidently down the hall to join them. Hannibal could hear the commotion below them as people fled the building.

  “You know,” Ray said, “I was a little worried about our only gun going inside the apartment. But now I see how these people are, it’s no big deal, eh?”

  Sarge nodded without really showing agreement. “That’s just one down and five to go. Let’s remember we don’t know what’s behind door number two.”

  As if to drive his words home, Sarge opened the door to the apartment across the hall very cautiously. Hannibal followed, leading with the shotgun’s muzzle. Their technique for clearing the room was identical, but this time no one met them. Sarge went to the edge of the second room’s entrance and looked through to the end.

  “Don’t you smell that?” Hannibal asked from the other side of the entrance. “Nobody could stay in here.”

  “Maybe,” Sarge said. “Can’t see all of the kitchen though.” The two men edged down the walls opposite each other. A streak of movement and Hannibal shouted, “Shit!” and whipped his shotgun down. He barely avoided squeezing the trigger as a huge rat bolted past him. Sarge laughed his deep, staccato laugh.

  Finally, Sarge opened the kitchen door into the hall. Over his shoulder, Hannibal saw five skinny, ragged young men coming up the stairs. Timothy and Ray met them, their batons held the way Sarge had taught them, at high port arms.

  “You going the wrong way, my boys.” Timothy showed brilliant white teeth. The youngsters stopped. Two of them, Puerto Ricans Hannibal thought, took a few more tentative steps. Ray rattled off a high-speed burst of Spanish, ending with “Vamanos!” The Hispanic boys turned and the others followed them down.

  “Looks like he sure told them,” Sarge said.

  Hannibal’s team moved down to the second floor with more confidence. Ray and Timothy were getting good at prodding people down the steps and no one had been hurt yet. The first
door on the right was locked. Sarge kicked it open and stepped aside. A pudgy woman, much younger than her face revealed, whipped up a knife.

  “You leave us alone,” she yelled. Hannibal pumped the shotgun and stepped forward. She dropped her knife and ran into the flat. They heard her slam the door at the far end, but still proceeded carefully. In the middle room another woman lay motionless on a bare, stained mattress. Hannibal feared the worst but when Sarge bent to nudge her, she turned over.

  “Too drugged to know,” Sarge said. “Or care.” After checking the rest of the apartment, Sarge lifted the girl to her feet and guided her to the stairs.

  At the door of the second flat on the second floor, Hannibal stopped to gulp some extra air. He knew this was the center of the crack house. When he nodded to Sarge they burst in just as before. The first room was empty, but the sliding doors to the next room were nearly closed and they heard ragged breathing from the other side.

  Sarge dashed across the room, stopped at the other end, and eased toward the dividing doors. Hannibal stayed even with him. He hated the sweat on his brow and started to wish he had given someone else the gun, despite the law. Sarge reached out and pulled one side of the sliding doors open. As the glass and wooden wall slid into place he found himself staring into the muzzle of a big revolver held by a shaking teenager.

  “Get the fuck out of here, man,” the boy said. “I swear to God I’ll blow your fucking head off. I swear to God I will.” His eyes held a vacant desperation, as if he knew this time these men would uproot him from his cocaine rich soil for good.

  “You don’t want to do that.” Hannibal stepped into full view, his barrel pointed at the kid’s face. “What you want to do is put that little gun away and walk out of here. You can’t win this.”

  “You some kind of right wing fanatic or something?” the boy shouted. “All I want…” Hannibal hated hearing hysterics coming from behind a gun, especially since he, not Sarge, was now the target.

  “All you want is your crack. I know. And frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you want to drug yourself to death. I ain’t no cop. Like I said before, I don’t care if you use drugs. You just can’t do it here.”

  The younger man took one hand off his pistol to run greasy fingers through flat-topped hair. Hannibal knew he should fire now. Waiting risked Sarge’s life as well as his own. But the killing was not in him.

  During the next minute Hannibal’s lungs seemed frozen. The boy seemed to forget what he was doing there. He looked at his own gun as if he had never seen it before. Finally he bent down, placed it on the floor, turned, and fled for the far door.

  “You can breathe now,” Sarge said. He waved Hannibal on, and they went through the remaining empty rooms. In the hall, the group gathered for the final descent.

  “How’s everybody doing?” Hannibal asked on their way downstairs.

  “Nobody dead yet,” Timothy said. The hall was surprisingly quiet. Hannibal guessed everyone who got the message had already left. This time the rear guard men held the base of the stairs while Sarge and Hannibal prepared to enter the right hand flat. At the door, they watched one woman, dull eyed and empty stared, slip out of the flat across the hall and out the front door without closing it.

  Sarge and Hannibal entered the right side apartment and took a quick look around. It was much the way Hannibal found it the first day. The winos had returned to their familiar sleeping space.

  “You have any trouble in here before?” Sarge asked.

  “No, it was just as you see it,” Hannibal said. “I guess we just need to nudge them into action.”

  Sarge shook his head. “Why don’t you go on back out into the hall? I got this.”

  Hannibal joined Ray and the others, feeling out of place carrying a shotgun. Wondering about the woman he’d seen wander past a few minutes before, he craned his neck to see out the door. He didn’t see her, but several other ousted squatters stood around the stoop, looking shaken and lost. Beyond them, people went on their way to work or wherever, pointedly ignoring the small knot of castaways clogging the sidewalk.

  With a squeal like an old man’s yawn, the far door out of the right apartment opened. Hannibal turned to watch a string of men wandered out. Black and white, dirty and of indeterminate age, they shuffled past Hannibal and his club holding team members, angry at being roused from a good, wine induced sleep. He watched six pairs of feet slide out the door, with not one decent pair of shoes between them.

  Sarge came out last, shaking his head. The group reunited at the base of the stairs. Hannibal and Sarge made solid eye contact, but no words were necessary. Hannibal scanned the other four faces before turning to the final flat’s front door.

  When Sarge tried the knob, a frantic voice snapped “Get away.” Sarge pointed at the others, getting them repositioned through hand signals. Now Timothy held the base of the stairway, while Ray went to the other end of the hall to stand with his back against the wall beside the last apartment’s kitchen door. Quaker stood behind Sarge and Hannibal. Virgil crouched against the front door, leaving it half open.

  “This is it,” Sarge muttered. “All the cornered rats are in here. Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be,” Hannibal replied. This time Sarge took a deep breath. He kicked out, there came the crack of twisted wood, and the door bounced open.

  Sarge had just moved into his usual position when a shot split the air. As if punched by a giant invisible fist, Sarge snapped backward into the hall. Hannibal stepped forward, and Quaker slid between his legs, tossing his billy club, sending it spinning across the floor. Hannibal recognized his bright eyed enemy from his previous visit and was about to blast his face apart when he and a man behind him suddenly dropped out of sight.

  Quaker crawled over one man to reach his nightstick as Hannibal’s foot landed hard on Wild Eyes’ hand, which was clawing for his dropped gun.

  “Nice trick, Quaker.” Hannibal kicked the pistol into a corner.

  “Yeah, neat ain’t it?” he answered, running long fingers through his thinning, short cropped hair. Hannibal could see he was happy to get into the action. But his concern was not ahead, but behind him. No one else was in that front room, and he didn’t think they would wait for him in the kitchen this time.

  Hannibal stepped back into the hall just as the kitchen door flew open. A handful of Saturday night special poked out. Ray swung his club down with both hands, raising a loud crack when it hit the gunman’s arm. The pistol flew down the hall. The gunman ran howling toward the front door, clutching his broken arm. Three others followed, scattering for escape from the kitchen. They ran past Hannibal without looking at him.

  Hannibal never thought it would go this well. Sticking to the plan, he quickly wandered through the apartment looking for any kind of trap. When he reached the kitchen he went back out to the hall and waved Ray to join him.

  Timothy had apparently gone into the apartment to back Quaker up. Quaker shoved Bright Eyes and his friend past Hannibal who was helping Sarge to his feet.

  “You okay?” Hannibal asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Sarge replied, slapping his heavy vest. “These things work. Don’t know where you got them, but I’m sure as hell glad you did.”

  All heads spun as the sound of very close sirens filled the house. The last two junkies stalled at the door.

  “Jesus, the cops are here,” Bright Eyes rattled in panic, back pedaling.

  “Sucks, don’t it?” Quaker grinned. He and Virgil shoved hard with their sticks, and the two men trotted, against their will, down the outside steps.

  Hannibal handed the shotgun to Sarge who would hide, and stepped outside. He saw the last two junkies sprint past four policemen standing in a semicircle at the base of the stoop, guns drawn. One of them Hannibal recognized.

  “Kendall,” he called, taking a tentative step downward. “Now you show up.”

  “Some lady down the block called in a disturbance up here,” Kendall said, staring hard at Hanniba
l’s protective vest. “Thought you might need a hand.”

  “Well, we handled it without you, thanks.” Hannibal sat on a step. “All cleared out.”

  “Shots were reported,” Kendall said, but he holstered his weapon.

  “No casualties on either side,” Hannibal reported, “except one attack dog. But it don’t have to be a wasted trip, Bro. The drug crowd came back, and they brought all their bad news with them. You can come in and collect up whatever drugs and paraphernalia they left behind. You might even want to make an arrest or two.”

  “With you in there with the dope and all of them out here on the street? That might not be too smart.”

  “Hey, you won’t find any of our prints on any of that stuff,” Hannibal said. “And if necessary we can all pass a blood or urine test. Come on in.”

  Kendall accepted the invitation, and brought three other officers with him. He paid less attention to the contents of the apartment than its occupants.

  “And these would be?”

  Hannibal smiled. “Officer Kendall, these are the other new residents. I’d like you to meet Ray, Timothy, Sarge, Quaker and Virgil.”

  “I hope you guys got a good break on the rent,” Kendall said, shaking hands with each of them. “But I see you came prepared. So Jones, do you want to tell me about the flak vests and batons?”

  “Not really, no.”

  Kendall and his fellow officers explored the flat, bagging and labeling illegal items. Back in the front room, Hannibal hesitantly picked up the telephone sitting in a corner.

  “Hot damn,” he called to the others. “Dial tone!” He pushed seven buttons from memory and perched on the windowsill. He heard less than half a ring before a breathless “Santiago” filled his ear.