by Brian Haig
“Hey Patron,” said the Latino, his tone familiar and coaxing like we knew each other, “just relax, and this’ll go down easy. You gotta wallet, right, man? Keep this low-maintenance, huh? You hand over that wallet, we let you drive off to work, we all part amigos.”
He’d stopped moving toward me, while his partner kept coming, his knife held low, his grip tight. The police, who study these things, say the wisest thing in situations like this is to simply hand over your wallet. Something like 95 percent of the time, the crooks intend you no harm, so long as you pacify them by handing over whatever they ask for. Don’t challenge them. Don’t taunt them. Don’t try to fight. Play the odds and the worst you’ll get out of it’s the inconvenience of having to cancel your charge cards and replace your driver’s license. Even in those 5 percent of cases where the victims get hurt, fairly often the victim precipitates it, by choosing the wrong moment to act courageous, or failing to act respectful and subservient to the thugs.
On any ordinary day, I’d do exactly as the police advise. I mean, it’s not like I have a lot of money in my wallet. I’m an Army guy, right?
Something, however, didn’t look ordinary about this. Why did one have a gun and the other a knife? Why did the guy with the gun stand back, while the one with the knife kept moving toward me, his arm tense?
I studied their faces, and they only made one mistake. I immediately stepped to the right, putting the guy with the knife between me and the shooter. At the same instant I swung my briefcase up into his face while my right foot lashed out for his groin. It’s the oldest trick in the book: Threaten the target with two simultaneous chances of bodily injury. It was a fifty-fifty shot, and he took the 50 percent most advantageous to me. Instead of a broken nose, he got his testicles driven into his stomach.
Before he could even lurch over, I rushed him, ramming his body with all my strength, shoving him toward the shooter, using him as a screen. Which turned out to be a damned good idea, because the shooter let loose two shots at my human shield before we came into him full force.
The shooter sprawled on his ass, the pistol still in his right hand, his partner’s dying body still on top of him. I reached for his pistol hand and pinned it to the pavement. With my other hand, I tried to chop him across the nose but knowing the instant I struck that I’d hit something too hard, like his forehead.
I could feel his gun hand moving up, trying to redirect the pistol at my head. I let loose of his wrist and grabbed the gun barrel, trying to keep it pointed away from me. We stayed like this for a few seconds, me lying on the dying knifer’s body, the gunman trapped underneath it, both of us grunting and cursing.
He was a strong man, though. I could feel the gun barrel slipping from my grip, when the strangest damned thing happened. The dying man trapped between us screamed, “Bastard!” and furiously bashed his forehead into his partner’s face. That act of dying fury saved me. I felt his grip loosen and I turned the barrel toward his own head. In the process I must’ve cramped his trigger finger, because there was a sharp bang and blood and brain matter sprayed all over my face.
I lay still a moment to be sure he was dead. I couldn’t actually open my eyes to check, because my face was covered with goo. When he didn’t move, I finally rolled off, dragging the pistol out of his hand, just in the event I was wrong and there was a little life-juice left in him.
I stood up and wiped my face. Then I bent over and began searching their pockets, looking for identification. The black guy’s pockets contained nothing but a few reefers. The Latino had more reefers and a thick wad of money. I pulled it out and counted; five thousand dollars in used hundred-dollar bills.
A moment later I heard a siren and I nearly stuffed the bills back in his pocket, realizing as I started to do so that if the police fingerprinted the money, I’d have some explaining to do. Instead, I opened my car door and put the money under the front seat.
Then I sat on the seat and tried to look like I was shaken, which, frankly, required very little acting. The police car screeched to a halt and two officers rushed out, gripping their guns and screaming for me to put my hands where they could see them and stay perfectly still. It’s an old, overused line, but I didn’t argue. I always try to be good-mannered in situations like this. They looked down at the two bodies, saw they were street hoods, saw my Army uniform, and the younger of the two officers told me to sit back down and relax.
He was still taking my statement when a meat wagon followed by an unmarked car arrived and unloaded some emergency technicians, who inspected the corpses, while an older, somewhat overbearing detective named Sergeant Burrows took over the interrogation from the uniformed cop.
After ten minutes of semi-antagonistic questioning and the uniformed officer confirming my identity, Sergeant Burrows said, “Seems pretty open and shut, Major. Coupla punks make their way over from the city to score a quick hit. Probably they only wanted enough cash to buy some dope. They were hiding between some cars when you walked out. Wrong place, wrong time, shitty situation.”
“Very shitty,” I said.
“We’ll get their prints and know who they are by noon. Both had big-house tattoos, so they got records. Won’t be hard to identify.”
“No, I guess not,” I said.
“You know, you fucked up.”
“Actually, I think they fucked up.”
“What we advise in situations like this is to just give them what they want. Don’t play tough-guy hero. The gun and knife were only to threaten you. They probably meant you no harm, but you pushed the situation, so now we got two dead guys.”
“I feel so damned ashamed,” I said.
In a very tired voice, he said, “Don’t give me no lip, Major. I could just as easily run your ass to the station and book you for manslaughter. Then you gotta go through the bitch of hiring a lawyer and defending yourself.”
“Actually, I am a lawyer,” I told him. “I’d raise hell, you’d look stupid, and we’d both waste our time. I overreacted, okay? I saw that knife… I saw that gun, and I responded before I could think. I wish now I’d just handed over my wallet and took my chances. Believe me, I wish I hadn’t killed those two guys.”
He studied my face to see if I was sincere, and I awarded him with my most appropriately pained grimace. Either he believed it, or he decided it wasn’t worth his time to catfight with a lawyer.
He said, “Okay, here’s the way we’ll work this. We’ll find out who these two are. We’ll canvass the area and see if there were any other witnesses and if they’ll confirm it went down the way you said. We’ll then run this through the DA’s office and they’ll decide what to do with you.”
“Fair enough,” I replied.
He stared at me another moment, then walked back to his car. I couldn’t blame him for being grumpy, especially since I’d left a few things out of my answers during his interrogation. The biggest thing being why I was so damned sure they weren’t there to rob me; why I was damned certain they came to murder me.
What I’d seen in the black guy’s eyes was the same look I’d seen young soldiers get their first time in combat, trying to work up enough nerve or rage to kill someone. Nor did I inform him this was the second attempt on my life in two weeks, that the Latino corpse had five thousand bucks in his pocket, that somebody obviously hired them to kill me, that they’d approached me thinking I’d do exactly what the police recommend and just reach into my pocket and hand over my wallet. I didn’t tell him what a great setup it was, how my body would’ve been discovered by the next poor slob who walked out to the parking lot, a long, fatal gash from my pelvis to my chest, how the police would’ve filed it under those 5 percent of cases where the normal odds just didn’t work out.
Why didn’t I tell him these things? Because I would’ve been removed immediately as Morrison’s attorney. Because it would’ve opened a line of inquiry I didn’t want opened-about my meetings with Arbatov; about how I’d managed to turn a simple legal defense into some kind of
murderous vendetta against me. And mostly, because I was wildly confused and needed time to think.
And because I realized something else-my client was probably innocent, and somebody was trying to keep me from proving it. There was simply no other explanation for two attempts on my life. And if you go one step past that logic, you realize that I’d somehow stumbled onto something that scared the hell out of whoever was behind this.
Which falls under the heading of good and bad news. The good news being that if I retraced my steps, I might discover something I’d done, somebody I’d talked to, some question I’d raised that marked me for death. The bad news being that I might be attending my own funeral before I found out what it was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It took four knocks on Katrina’s door before she answered, and you can’t believe how relieved I was to see her standing in her bathrobe, her hair wet and bedraggled, a disbelieving and vividly unwelcoming look on her face.
As soon as the cops had released me, I was struck by the thought that if I was a target, well maybe she was, too. Ergo, I was standing on her doorstep, trying to look like we were still the best of chums.
“What do you want?” she asked, in a most unflattering way.
I gave her my most winsome grin. “Can I come in? Please?”
She sighed and stepped aside. As apartments go, there was nothing to brag about here, a Lilliputian efficiency filled with third-hand furniture and a few plants to give it some life. It was neat as a pin, though, the bed made, the plates put away, everything spick-and-span. And who would’ve guessed she was a neat freak?
I said, “We’ve got problems. There was another attempt on my life this morning.”
Her face raced from disappointed to see me to instantly concerned. “What happened?”
“Two thugs bushwhacked me in the parking lot when I left my apartment. One had five grand in his pocket. They were hired guns.”
“And…?”
“And I, uh, I killed them.”
She took a second to absorb this. “And why did you come here?”
“Because you could be next.”
“I’m fine. Nobody’s bothered me.”
“That doesn’t mean nobody intends to bother you.”
Her expression went flat. She looked at her watch. “I’ve got an appointment in thirty minutes. I really have to hurry.”
Were we having a problem here or what? I could see she was still very peeved and was trying to give me the heave-ho, only her timing was awful.
I flapped my arms up and down in frustration. “Are you listening to me, Katrina? Somebody tried to kill me. They might try to kill you, too.”
“Why would they? I’m off the case… I’m no threat.”
I shook my head. “Maybe they don’t know that. Or maybe they’re worried you know what I know.”
She was shaking her head. “This is a very important appointment. It’s for a job. Odd as this may sound, you need money to eat in this country. I… I have to get dressed.”
“You might not live to eat. Please listen to-”
Like lightning, she whipped something out of her pocket, and before you could say “ouch” a switchblade was pointed at my stomach.
She said, “I can take care of myself.”
Wow. She held open her door and gave me the distinct impression I was supposed to use it. It’s amazing how grumpy some people can get. But then women are different than men. They have memories connected to emotions-a poisonous mix.
I stepped out and the door closed behind me. I took the elevator downstairs and left, but didn’t go far. I moved to a position across the street where I could hide behind an illegally parked truck and watch the front entrance of her apartment building.
I took a moment to study the environment. Katrina didn’t live in the best of neighborhoods. Winos were stumbling around, and a few homeless people were camped out on street benches, or huddled inside doorways, hoping to scrounge a little heat. There were some teenagers hanging out by a local bodega, swilling beer even though it was only nine in the morning. They were trashtalking, and just generally trying to impress one another the way young aspiring hoodlums do. If you were looking for likely suspects, you saw plenty of them.
About twenty minutes later, I watched Katrina rush out of her apartment building with her purse tucked under her arm, the way street-smart women carry their valuables in neighborhoods like this, tightly, so nobody can tug it away and run off with it.
I gave her a head start, then dashed across the street and followed. I guessed her apartment building didn’t have underground parking, or even a parking lot, so, like most Washingtonians, she had to scrounge around adjoining neighborhoods for a space. It’s that kind of city, and at the end of her street she hooked a left. My eyes searched to see if anybody was following her, or taking an undue interest. I didn’t see anybody, so I ran forward to keep her in sight.
As I rounded the corner, a street bum on a park bench got up and followed her. He was about twenty steps behind her and he truly did look like a bum, dirty and grungy, with clothes that were tattered and weathered. What was odd was that he didn’t move like a guy who was down on his luck, surviving on handouts, pickled on dope or booze or whatever he could afford. He moved like a sprightly killer stalking his prey, right down to the butcher knife he yanked out of his pocket and lugged in his right hand.
I screamed, “Run, Katrina!” and tried to calculate the distance, wondering if I could get there before he raised it over his head and slammed it into her skull.
He turned around and looked at me, even as she turned around and looked at him, and she saw his blade, even as he spun back around and faced her. He was only ten feet from her. I was at least twenty yards away.
Cool as ice, she reached into her purse, yanked out a small canister, held it up like a pistol, and unleashed a spray in his face. The butcher knife was over his head and ready to slash down into her face when he got the full brunt of it. He reeled back for the merest instant, then swung the blade through the air, only Katrina had smartly stepped aside, so he slashed at thin air.
That’s when I got there. I punched him in the back of his head, more to attract attention than to hurt him. He immediately spun around, coughing and rubbing his eyes with one hand, brandishing the butcher knife with the other.
He had no idea who I was, except that I was an enemy. He began swinging the knife wildly through the air, while he used his other hand to wipe his eyes. It was only a matter of time before the pepper spray wore off and his accuracy improved. A butcher knife is a terrific weapon. In the hands of a trained murderer, it only takes one good whack and it’s over. I had no weapon. Or actually, maybe I did. I reached into my pocket and withdrew a pen. I launched a kick at one of his shins and dove at him, hoping he couldn’t get the blade up in time.
We went tumbling onto the cement, him trying to bury the knife in my head, while I brought my right hand up, then swung it down, my pen gouging directly into his right eye socket. I guess I had an adrenaline pump, because I drove it about four inches into his brain. I felt his body tighten and lurch, and he let out a loud scream that sounded perfectly awful, but thankfully didn’t last long.
I rolled off him and Katrina stared down in horror at the Bic pen sticking out of his eye socket. While I hate to be cold about these things, I yanked it out and stuffed it in my pocket, because my fingerprints were on it, and I didn’t want the police to know I’d been there. I’d already killed two men that morning, and it would stretch credulity if they found me with another corpse, like I just happened to be involved in another homicide, and, gee, what a terrifically funny coincidence, huh?
I got up and grabbed Katrina’s arm, then tugged her down the street. Some of the kids I’d seen drinking at the bodega had come around the corner, attracted by the dead man’s scream, and they got a good look at the two of us scurrying away. There was nothing I could do about that, unless I wanted to race back there and threaten them with a bloody Bi
c pen. From the looks of them, that would be a very stupid idea. This was one of those neighborhoods where seven-year-olds get Uzis for their birthdays. Anyway, with any luck they’d be the kind of kids who’d never tell the police anything, one of those code-of-the-hood things. Even if they did talk, what could they say? They saw a man and woman running away from the crime scene?
Katrina and I intermittently walked and ran, block after block, until I was sure we’d put enough distance between us and the corpse that even a local sweep wouldn’t catch us. I finally dragged her into a pizza shop and we dodged into a booth near the back.
She reached into her purse and withdrew a Handi Wipe, passed it to me, and said, “Wipe your hair. You got splattered by that man’s blood.”
I did as I was told, saying, “Thanks.”
She nodded. “You always show girls such a good time?”
“Not always.”
“No wonder you’re thirty-nine and single.”
“Yeah, no wonder.”
The good news here was that her sense of humor seemed to be coming back. What does that tell you about her? Line her up to get murdered and suddenly she’s all bubbles. Interesting.
“What did we do?” she asked.
“Damned if I know,” I admitted. “But it’s got to be the same people who tried to kill us in Moscow.”
“Not necessarily.”
She was right, of course. There could be two different groups after us. There could be a dozen. But being right, and being right, are two different things. These were the same bastards; I was sure of it. So was she.
I got up and went to the counter and ordered a pizza, partly because I was hungry and partly because I didn’t want to arouse attention from the shop’s proprietors, who were under the perverse impression that their booths were reserved for paying customers.
When I got back to the table, Katrina was playing with a napkin and staring at the tabletop. She looked perfectly calm. It was impossible to tell she was contemplating the fact she’d just nearly gotten her head cleaved in by a murderer wielding a butcher knife.