Whiskey Way was where I was going. Another low-end, high-crime town I would have preferred not to go anywhere near.
Before I decorated my own offices, I did a tour of all the detective firms in the city. They all fell into two categories: the high-end, one-hundred man firms that looked and smelled like a high-end legal practice, and the bottom-end, small firms that always seemed to share space with some bail bonds outfit. There seemed to be no in-between, and I immediately planned to establish myself in that space, along with taking all kinds of clients—private persons, government, and corporate. Those two things were to make me unique, and I desperately needed to be unique in this industry to have any chance to survive.
Box was a one-man outfit, nothing to stand out from any other in the Yellow Pages, but he had a reputation as a licensed private eye, who’d do any job you wanted, as long as the price was right. “Any job” was code for illegal. Those who knew the detective biz called him a “scumbag.” I had no reason to doubt them.
His offices were on the fifth floor of a business tower in Whiskey Way. Across the hall was a bail bonds office, and as a result, there were the smelliest, grungiest place with people hanging around. Since it was a common set-up for low-enders, it must have been a mutually beneficial situation for all involved.
I pushed open the front door to enter; the interior was dim and dank. Box’s office was not even an office, but a half-office. The other half he shared with some other detective firm. I could see a haze of cigarette smoke hanging near the ceiling.
“What do you want?” a male voice asked.
My eyes finally made out the figure of a man, standing at a file cabinet, who turned and was looking at me.
“Looking for Box,” I answered.
“You got an appointment?”
“Do I need one?”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“I’ll go to another detective then, where the customer service is a bit more customer-friendly.”
“Don’t do that. Wait there.”
The man closed the file cabinet and disappeared, or I couldn’t see him anymore, as I stood there continuing to glance around.
“He’ll see you.” The man had returned.
I stepped forward, even though I had no clue where I was going; it was that dark.
“The office in the back with the light on,” the man said.
This was some kind of office. It seemed the lack of light was to hide all the unsightly clutter. I walked back to the only place that had light. I stopped and peeked into the office. There, seated behind a desk, was Box.
“Box?” I asked, even though I knew it was him, but he didn’t know I had been checking up on him.
“You know it’s me, so why are you asking?”
I stepped inside and didn’t ask as I took a seat.
He cracked his knuckles, then put one hand on his desk, while the other hand was out of sight behind the desk. I put both of my hands on the desk.
“I came to hire you for information.”
“Information? I’m a detective. I don’t give information. Who are you?”
“I’m a detective,” I said.
His unfriendly face turned to a solid frown.
“Why are you here?”
“I need a bunch of information from you, and I’m happy to pay for the information if I have to.”
“What information?”
I held my left wrist to my face and looked at the electronic wrist pad strapped to my inside forearm. “A Mr. Ergot and his assistant, a Mr. Peri.”
I looked up, and Box’s frown was now accompanied by the squinting of his eyes.
“What did they hire you for?” I asked.
“Detectives don’t reveal any details about clients.”
“Since both of them are dead, murdered, they won’t mind,” I said.
Box watched me closely. I could see his scumbag mind racing around trying to figure out how much I really knew.
“I don’t know those names.”
“Never meet with them?”
“No.”
“Never talked to them?”
“No.”
“They didn’t hire you?”
“No.”
“You didn’t take a taxi to Mr. Ergot’s office in The Wharf District?”
“No.”
“You didn’t deposit a check from Mr. Ergot in your bank account?”
“No.”
“You weren’t at the scene of Mr. Ergot’s murder? Where someone fed him to his own piranhas.”
“No.”
“And threw his assistant, Mr. Peri, to become one with the pavement after a sixty-story fall.”
“No.”
“You didn’t receive a call from a…” I looked at my electric notepad, “Red Rabbit?”
“How the hell do you know that?” Box sat up straight. “Mr. Cruz, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I smiled. “So, you do know who I am.”
“Get out of here.”
“I want that information. How much money do you want?”
“Nothing from you.”
“Why do you have to be like that?”
“You can’t spend money if you’re dead.”
“Did you tell Mr. Ergot and Mr. Peri to be especially careful around this Red Rabbit character?”
“I got paid.”
“I knew it! You got my brother killed!”
The voice behind us startled us so completely that we both jumped up from our chairs and turned. A man in a white suit fired at Box. I dived to see Box collapse to the ground and turned to see the stranger pointing his gun at me.
By this time, it was all reflex. I flicked my wrist. Pop! The shot hit him in the face.
The man in the white suit fell back out of the office, his gun flying from his left hand. He stopped his fall, snatched his gun in mid-air with his right hand, and fired at me.
Oww!
I can’t remember if I screamed out loud, like a girl, or if it was my inner voice, but the blast brushed past my cheek.
I was mad now! Four times I was shot at! Enough!
I rolled away from the doorway as I grabbed my own piece from my jacket and jumped up. Now, it was my turn. I fired multiple times and heard a male scream and then footsteps running away. I shot out the light in the office and ducked to the floor. All I heard was more shots and then the footsteps running further away.
I waited, crouched on the ground. More shots flew into the room. Then, I heard a beep and feet running again. The elevator had arrived, and the man in the white suit ducked into it. With these old towers, there was only one elevator, and undoubtedly thought he was getting away scot-free, but I knew something he didn’t.
I had psychologically prepared myself to get shot. I didn’t prep myself to get grazed by laser blasts. It was like someone took a dull razor and tried to slash the side of my face with it. It hurt bad. But that wasn’t why I was mad as I found the exit window. I was thinking about Box. He was a scumbag, but that didn’t mean he deserved to get killed. I saw the body of the guy who “greeted” me in his rude way on the ground, motionless. He didn’t deserve to be dead either. Being a scumbag or rude was not a reason to get killed. Maybe they weren’t dead, but I gave chase under the assumption they were. That man in the white suit was mine. I knew I shot him in the face, so I don’t how he was walking around. For all I knew, he had an inorganic face with no nerve endings from some freak accident. So many people had so many inorganic and bionic parts they weren’t born with. You could never tell these days.
Old towers like this had maintenance sections on the lower floors. It’s where the technicians did their communications, cybernet, power, and any other electrical work that needed to be done. It also had back entrances, straight to the street.
I burst out into the rain and got my bearings. He would come out of the main entrance, and I would be ready for him. I didn’t just have a new hat and coat, but I bought myself some snazzy aqua
-shoes, specifically for sneaking up or running like a cheetah through the streets without falling on my butt because of the wet ground. I was about ten feet from the corner when he appeared, and he instantly saw me. He aimed and fired. But again, I wasn’t hit. The victim was an old man next to me. He was hit in the chest and fell to the ground with a look of pain and terror. His eyes closed, but then fluttered wildly to match the shaking his body was doing.
“Hold him down and help me,” I called out, but people moved away from us in their black and gray slickers. Some even pretended they had seen nothing.
I was even madder now. I searched the man for his mobile and pressed the emergency button.
“This is 9-11. What is the emergency?” the computer voice said.
I put the mobile back in the old man’s pocket and stood up. Most people didn’t know that when you called the emergency, you didn’t even need to say a word; police would automatically be dispatched. Was he a third man that the man in the white suit killed?
My piece was in my right hand and I ran. No, I sprinted around the corner after him. As soon as I came around, I immediately saw him about twenty feet away. His nice clothes weren’t so nice anymore, but muddied—he had fallen. He wasn’t running, but trying to speed-walk away. He saw me and tried to run again and immediately slipped and fell face first to the pavement.
I approached him like a rocket. He picked himself off the ground and turned. I shot him once in the chest and the second time in the shoulder. He cried out, but again, didn’t fall. He turned back around and tried to run. Why wasn’t this guy falling down? I flipped the switch on my gun, aimed, and fired one round after the other.
People jumped away, ducked, dove into stores, pressed themselves to the wall. I was running through the streets of Metropolis, in public, shooting at another person. If any policeperson saw me, they could legally just shoot me dead on sight.
The man had disappeared around the corner and I was there. He was finally on the ground, lying flat on his back. His gun wasn’t in his hand anymore, but on the ground next to him. I slowly walked to him with my gun pointed. He started up at me, his eyelids flickering as the light rain fell.
“You killed three people,” I yelled and aimed at his head.
He closed his eyes as he turned his head from me.
“He killed my brother,” he said, then coughed.
I leaned forward and his face had an unnatural look to it.
This was a mess. People all around the streets were filming me with their mobiles, so really, there was no point in running. I could make up a plausible story if I stayed; I couldn’t if I fled the scene. But if I stayed, there would be a strong possibility I’d be going to jail for the first time in my life—for the second time. Yes, I couldn’t forget about my “bonding” moment with my future parents-in-law.
Chapter 41
Detective Monitor
THE POLICE ARRIVED in force. Three separate crime scenes, but all connected—to me. I sat on the wet sidewalk in handcuffs, waiting. One male and one female officer stood there, watching me with their hands on their weapon belts.
Another officer arrived, not with the standard half-helmet, but a simple black baseball cap. “Is this him?” he asked as he approached.
The two officers nodded.
The police detective took my ID from them and studied it.
“Mr. Cruz, is it?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Two casualties in an office. One casualty around the corner. One casualty here. Did you shoot all these people, Mr. Cruz?”
“I only shot the man here. He was the active shooter.”
“Was he now?”
“Yeah, and I know you did the ballistic test already, or I’d be in the jail now. When do you unhandcuff me and let me go about my day?”
“And the gun my officers took off of you was the weapon?”
“Yeah. I got it off one of the men shot, a detective named Box.”
“Are you licensed to carry a firearm, Mr. Cruz?”
“I don’t need to be licensed to fire a gun when I’m firing at an active shooter in self-defense. He shot three people and would have shot more if I hadn’t shot him.”
“Active shooter, huh?”
“What phrase should I use?” I asked. “Unfriendly person?”
“Maybe he wouldn’t have shot anyone if you weren’t chasing him with a gun.”
“I took Box’s gun when he came in and started shooting at us. And he already shot the other guy in the office before that. You know, why don’t we ask that old man or his family? Should I have shot the guy who shot you or let him get away? Are you going to unhandcuff me? You have my statement and all the guns involved.”
“Do we have all the guns involved, Mr. Cruz? ‘Cause I think the gun you say was Box’s is actually your throwaway gun, and you hid your real gun.”
“Did you find another gun?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you going to arrest me? I have rights, you know.”
“We’re thinking about it.”
“I’m allowed to defend myself.”
“Not as an unlicensed civilian.”
“If I didn’t have a gun to protect myself, I’d be dead and maybe a lot of other innocent bystanders would be, too. Police can carry guns, but the people can’t?”
“Mr. Cruz, you can carry whatever toy gun, bullet gun, or laser gun you like, as long as it’s registered, and you’re licensed. Mine is licensed. My officers’ guns are licensed. What about you? I hear you’re a clever one. You can weasel out of using someone else’s gun for self-defense, but to avoid arrest and adjudication at a trial, you need to be licensed to use a gun. That’s why you’re supposed to stay and call the police.”
“It was exigent circumstances.”
The three laughed.
“Are you a lawyer, Mr. Cruz?” the detective asked.
“No. And my license is in my wallet. For your inspection.”
They looked at each other. I could see it in the detective’s face: I was not supposed to be licensed. They took my wallet from my jacket and opened it.
“You got a counterfeit gun license, Mr. Cruz?” the detective asked.
The officers handed it to the detective. I could see the anger on his face as he studied it.
“How did you get a federal license, Mr. Cruz?”
“I can’t remember.”
The detective held the license in his hand, trying to think of something. He held the gun license in front of the officers. It wasn’t for them to see; it was for the body cams to scan it. Someone was talking into his earbud. After a moment, the detective handed the license back to one of the officers, one of them returned it to my jacket, and both lifted me to my feet and unhandcuffed me.
“You think you’re clever, Mr. Cruz,” the detective said. “I’m pretty clever, too.”
“Then why do the street cops call you Detective Do-Little?” I asked.
“What did you say?” The detective angrily snapped back.
“Nothing,” I said.
I could see the two officers were biting their lips not to smile.
“I want him cited,” the detective said to them.
“For what, exactly, Detective Monitor.”
“Discharging a weapon in public.”
“That was self-defense,” I said.
“This is what, your fourth contact with the police in 30 days? Cite him as a possible person of interest to appear before a judge. You’re only allowed three contacts with the police in a month, or you’re sent before a judge. You think I’m a pain. They’ll have you in those mandatory “how not to be a criminal” classes for 72 hours. I hear people purposely try to harm themselves to get out of those classes.”
“You said I had to be licensed, then I show you my license, and you’re punishing me. For the damn one-millionth time, an active shooter came into a private office and started shooting people. I get to protect myself, you know, and not allow myself
or other innocent people to get killed.”
By this time, I was pissed.
“I’m citing you anyway, and you will go to an anti-criminality class.”
“That ‘how not to be a criminal’ weekend class is nothing but an act of unmitigated cruelty to humankind.” The street officers laughed, but the detective was unmoved.
“Is this how you treat the pro-police community? Review the file, the real file and not the summary, and you’ll see it was not my fault. Seriously. Also, if you look at my jacket, you’ll see I’ve never had a contact, arrest, citation, warning, ever in my life. I was even a police intern.”
“Police intern? What’s that?”
“When I was in high school, I interned at Police Central.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. It’s true.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Cruz. We can’t prove it, but I know the gun we retrieved was your throwaway gun. Someone who thinks he’s more clever than the police will soon have delusions of grandeur and want to do other things, believe they are a master criminal genius.”
“Detective, all I was thinking of was the innocent people the shooter killed.”
“Who got killed?”
“The people.”
Detective Monitor shook his head. “That old man is fine. The two guys in the office are alive, though one is in serious condition. And even the active shooter of yours you claim did the evil deeds is alive in serious condition.”
Box was not dead! “What hospital are they at?”
“Why do you need to know the hospital?”
“Box was the guy I was meeting with when we were attacked. Why wouldn’t I want to know where he is to visit him?”
The detective ignored him. “Cite him and sign him up for the anti-criminality class.”
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