by Mary McBride
. He realized now that Elijah had pulled up in front of one of the massage parlors that the city fathers were trying so hard to outlaw.
"What do you think?" he asked Mike.
"I think we better hog-tie Biggs before he hurts somebody."
"Yeah." It was one time in his life Sonny wished he were a civilian and didn't have to be concerned with public safety. He muttered an oath. "I don't suppose we can just wait for them to kill each other, can we?"
The huge pimp had finally extracted himself from his vehicle and was now pointing his gun across the hood of his car at the massage parlor's painted-over-plate-glass window. Before Sonny or Mike could call out to stop him, he fired. The sound of shattering glass was barely audible over the man's shouts.
"Get your ass out here, Slink. You hear me? You killed my Lovey. Now I'm gonna kill you."
"Go around and cover the back door," Sonny told Mike. As he spoke he glanced over his shoulder toward the minivan to make sure Melanie wasn't sitting there making herself a target. He didn't see her, which meant she had ducked down onto the seat or better yet the floor. He hoped.
"Not a chance, partner. I'm staying right here to make sure you don't do something stupid," Mike said. "If Kinnison goes out the back, we'll get him later."
"I don't want him later, goddammit. I want him now."
Elijah Biggs fired another round into the premises, shattering what little glass remained within the window frame.
"Hey! There are women in there, Biggs," Sonny yelled. "Put the weapon away and let us take care of Slink."
"I'm gonna take care of the sucker right between his eyes, the way he deserves."
Sirens began wailing in the distance. Somebody inside must have called 9-1-1. Hell, it was probably Slink himself who'd called, figuring the only way he'd get out alive would be through police intervention.
Biggs fired again, but this time there was return fire from inside the massage parlor. Bullets from a semi-automatic rifle dinged into the pimp mobile and zinged over Sonny's and Mike's heads as they ducked further down, caught in the crossfire.
"We gotta get out of here," Mike said. There was a note of panic in his voice. "We're sitting ducks if…"
Slink Kinnison came crashing out the door, firing wildly.
With Biggs on one side and the madman with the semiautomatic on the other, Sonny and Mike had no choice but to nearly flatten themselves on the sidewalk. Sonny couldn't even get off a decent shot underneath the car to take Slink out at the knees.
"Don't do anything stupid, Son," Mike growled at him.
"Don't worry."
It occurred to him all of a sudden that Mike had ample reason to worry. If this had happened a couple of weeks ago, Sonny probably wouldn't have been able to resist taking both shooters down with a full frontal assault. He didn't know if it was the rush of adrenaline he couldn't resist or some misguided instinct to play the hero.
But whatever it was, it was gone. All he wanted to do was to get out of this in one piece and get on with his life with Melanie.
Bullets were everywhere now, direct hits thunking into metal and ricochets zinging off the pavement. He glanced over his shoulder again to make sure Mel was keeping her pretty head down. When he saw a couple bullet holes in the van's grill, he decided it was time to put an end to this. Somehow.
Biggs couldn't have too many rounds left in his clip, but Sonny didn't want to get hit by the one he hadn't counted on.
"I'm gonna crawl under the car, Mikey, and see if I can't get a clean shot at Kinnison."
"Okay. Go."
Sonny began to elbow his way under the rear bumper and exhaust system. He didn't even want to think about a stray bullet igniting the gas tank. He was all the way under the car, inching forward, when he heard Mike scream, "Jeez! I'm hit."
For a second Sonny didn't know whether to go forward or to scramble back. Just then Slink Kinnison strafed the pavement beside the pimp mobile, forcing Sonny to cover his head with his arms to avoid the bits of concrete spraying all around him.
When the sharp hail subsided, he lifted his head an inch just in time to see Kinnison's right knee touch the pavement. Had he been hit? After a second of blessed relief, Sonny realized just how wrong he was. The drug dealer hadn't been hit. His left knee came down, followed by his chest and shoulders, and finally his ugly, smirking face framed by greasy yellow hair. The guy hadn't been hit at all. He was kneeling, and now he was holding the semiautomatic a few inches off the sidewalk, aiming directly under the car.
Dammit to hell. Why wasn't Biggs shooting anymore? Somewhere Sonny could hear squealing tires and the roar of an engine, but he knew the squad car pulling up had arrived too late for him as he stared into Slink Kinnison's twisted face and the black barrel of his rifle.
Sonny aimed his gun ahead of him, knowing the best he could do from his awkward angle under the belly of the low-slung car would be to hit a toe, a foot, maybe an ankle if he was lucky. He hoped he wasn't dead before he knew where the bullet struck.
He squinted and squeezed off a shot, knowing it would probably be the last thing he would ever do. Except think about Mel. Think hard about Mel. God. Mel.
Then—what the hell?—he couldn't see a thing, and it took several seconds for Sonny to realize that his view of Slink and the AK-47 and imminent death had been obstructed by the sudden appearance of a tire. A portion of a tire from his vantage point, and a semicircle of hubcap that looked vaguely familiar.
He blinked away his confusion. My God. It was the minivan.
* * *
Melanie couldn't stop shaking. She could hardly breathe.
"Melanie, open the door!"
She tried but she couldn't unwrap her fingers from the steering wheel.
"Honey, open the door! Open the window!"
Her mouth tasted funny. Terrible. Like copper. Some bitter metal. Some dry metallic filings that she tried to swallow but couldn't.
"Somebody get a slim jim. Now. I need to pop this goddamn door. Melanie! Melanie!"
She tried to swallow again. She thought if she swallowed, the coppery taste would go away and then she'd be able to think about something else.
"Come on. Come on. The engine's running and the damn van's still in gear. My wife's in shock. I need to get her out of there."
Sonny? She turned her head to the left, encountering those familiar, beautiful blue-green eyes. He was alive!
She swallowed. Hard. The coppery taste disappeared.
* * *
Five hours later it was just getting dark outside and the shift was changing at the precinct when word finally came that the DA's office wouldn't be filing charges against Melanie. Slink Kinnison's death, when she'd hit him with the minivan, had been ruled a justifiable homicide.
"They should give you a medal," Sam Venneman said, draining the last of his coffee from a foam cup. "In fact, that's not such a bad idea." His lips quirked in a grin. "I might mention it at my next press conference."
"I don't want a medal, Sam. Please. I just want to go home." Melanie reached across the battered table to pat his hand, glad that her own hands weren't shaking anymore. "Thank you for all your help."
He shrugged his fashionably padded, pin-striped shoulders. "Can I give you a lift?"
Melanie shook her head. "I'll wait for Sonny. He should be back from the hospital any minute."
After Sam left, she stared at the big, round institutional clock on the wall, watching the second hand make its repeated sweeps and listening to muted conversations out in the corridor. She didn't feel like a murderer. Mostly she felt numb. She hadn't meant to kill Slink Kinnison, only to keep him from killing Sonny. Apparently, from what the EMTs had said, the drug dealer's head hit the pavement and he died instantly.
She wasn't sharing in the joy that was going around the precinct as a result, but she didn't think she'd be having nightmares about it the rest of her life or even need the services of a shrink to help her cope. In fact, she'd do it again if she had to, to sav
e her husband's life.
Funny. Sometime during the past few hours she'd stopped thinking of Sonny as her ex.
The door to the interrogation room opened and there he was as if her thoughts had somehow conjured him up. He looked tired. She couldn't wait to get him home and tucked into bed.
"How's Mike?" Melanie asked.
"He's out of surgery. His knee's pretty torn up, but he'll be fine."
"That's good." She sighed and stood. "Can we go home now?"
"Absolutely." Sonny looped an arm around her. "Let's get out of here. We've got a future to plan, Felix, you and I. We've got lists to write."
Melanie smiled and rested her head against his strong shoulder. "And love to make."
"That, too, baby," he said softly. "That, too."
* * *
Epilogue
« ^
Christmas Eve the following year
Melanie was hanging the last of her father's stained-glass ornaments on the tree just as she heard Sonny's footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Is she asleep?" she asked.
"Out like a little light. I had to sing sixteen choruses of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' though."
"Sixteen?" Melanie laughed. "You actually counted?"
"Pretty sick, isn't it? You must be rubbing off on me, Felix." He picked a glass ornament out of the box. "Where do you want this one?"
"Anyplace," she said, taking a few steps back and surveying the tree. "Well, maybe on the right. We could use a few more over there."
"Here?"
"Lower."
"Here?"
"Maybe two inches up and to the right. Okay. Now up about half an inch. Stop. Right there."
Sonny shook his head. "Mel, you're the only person I know who says 'anyplace' and means anyplace within a millimeter of exactly where you want it."
"Uh-huh," she said in total agreement. "Now we need another ornament about two inches above that one."
While she stood watching and offering advice, Melanie was also debating when to tell Sonny she was pregnant again. It would make for a lovely Christmas Eve, but then again the news would be a wonderful gift tomorrow morning.
This was so much better than the holiday she'd originally planned when she'd decided to have a baby. Back then, she had pictured herself alone with a just-beginning-to-walk Alex or Alexis. Now she had Sonny and a just-beginning-to-walk Sadie whose blue-green eyes were the image of her daddy's and whose stubborn notions of order included oatmeal everywhere but in her mouth and toys every place but her toybox. The Princess of Pandemonium.
Melanie had never been happier.
Sonny had turned in his badge and his service weapon when Mike and his bum knee went on disability, and the two of them had formed a partnership, rehabbing first Sonny's house and then others in Channing Square
. Both men looked far better, far sexier in tool belts than they ever had in shoulder holsters. Of course, they'd both looked divine in their dark blue suits at city hall when she and Sonny remarried.
Sadie arrived nine months to the day—Melanie counted, of course—after their fierce lovemaking in the shower. Their next child was due on the Fourth of July.
Maybe by that time she'd have a better handle on motherhood, Melanie hoped. For someone so thoroughly organized and in control, she still tended to fly apart at fevers above a hundred and tears that lasted longer than ten minutes.
It was Sonny who took to parenting as if he'd been born to do just that. She doubted he'd want to stop at two.
"To the left about an inch," she said.
"Here?"
"One branch higher."
"Here?"
"Perfect," she said.
Everything was. Perfect. Almost as if she'd planned it.
* * * * *