Reckless Endangerment

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  The light came on. The big man came in and made his switch of box and bottle. She heard him sniff. It was the smell from the portable toilet in the corner, a sharp chemical smell that did not quite cover the foetor of her waste. Then he left. Fatyma did not bother checking the food box. It was always the same: two hard-boiled eggs, two large, flat Arab loaves, a handful of olives, a sliced tomato, and a little paper packet of salt. Instead, she lay down flat with her cheek against the floor and took the thin, pointed sliver of slate she had found and dug. She was digging away at the thick layer of compressed coal dust that former decades had deposited on the floor of the coal cellar. For the past day she had dug a shallow bowllike hollow, filling it up with loose dust so she would not be found out. A few more scrapes and she was able to set the side of her head into the space so that her left eye was just level with the crack between the new door and the old uneven brick door sill. She could see a room harshly lit from overhead and the bottom of a large, dirty gray cylindrical form. The man’s shoes and ankles. Then his knees. He was kneeling before the gray structure. She heard the squeal of a metallic door opening, a scraping sound. She sighed in frustration. The angle was wrong for her to see what he was doing. A dull clang: he had closed the metallic door. She saw his feet move away, and nothing but utter blackness as he switched off the light.

  Khalid was thinking about the girl as he washed his hands in the bathroom sink. He was reflecting about the time just after he captured her when he had run his finger into her warm little slit and found, to his great surprise, that she was an actual virgin. Khalid had dabbled in pimping during his Beirut days, and had occasionally engaged in the specialized aspect of the trade that involves the procuring of virgins for wealthy elderly men, in the course of which he had done that sort of probing enough to know what was what. The business had been enormously lucrative, but risky and a great deal of trouble, and after a while he had drifted into the more sensible and straightforward drugs and guns trade. The problem, in Lebanon, at least, was the Arab attitude toward their women. Even extremely poor families would not sell girls, so they had to be lifted, which was risky. It was not something one wished to get a reputation for doing. The usual practice was to import them from Albania, or buy them from Italian gypsies, or (more commonly) ship them in from the Far East, where apparently they grew on trees. The problem was that an eleven-year-old Thai or Filipino girl, although certified intact, was not an object to inflame the lusts of the average wealthy Arab customer. This girl was another thing entirely—a full woman’s body, a face like a ripe peach, and she spoke Arabic. Such an item could command any amount of money from one of a half dozen men that Khalid knew in the Gulf, and more than that, the girl offered as a gift (for Khalid had plenty of money now) to one of these men would go a long way toward securing sanctuary, a new identity in some air-conditioned villa in Kuwait or Bahrain where Ibn-Salemeh and his friends would not find him. He would have to think about how this might be accomplished.

  Khalid drove the white Mercury carefully through the Brooklyn streets, just beginning to fill with the afternoon rush—east on Dean to Saratoga, left to Fulton, west to Ralph, where the gas station was. It had once been a Mobil station, and one wall still bore a faded mural of the old-style flying horse. The illuminated logo signs and the pumps were gone, but not the pump islands and the concrete roof that hung over them. Behind these stood a concrete-block three-bay garage and a small office. The place was now used as a brake and transmission shop. Four miscellaneous sedans were lined up on the apron to the left of the former pump island, in front of the wide bay doors, which were shut. A large red-painted wrecker was parked at the curb. A long, high pile of old tires stretched along the right side of the property, from near the street back to the rear lot. Khalid parked in this rear lot, a good spot, giving access to both Fulton Street and Ralph Avenue, at ten minutes before five and went into the office carrying a white Samsonite suitcase, Pullman size. He turned the light on, placed the suitcase on the counter, and sat down in a plastic chair to wait. From where he sat, he could not see Jemil or Hussein or Big Mahmoud, but he knew they were in position and armed with automatic weapons. As soon as the boy passed into the shadow of the pump island’s overhead shelter, there would be a brief spurt of fire from the Dodge Dart parked on the apron and from the shadows among the piles of tires. Hussein, he knew, was crouched below window level in the seat of the wrecker. If the boy became suspicious for any reason and tried to get back to his car, Hussein would roar out in the wrecker and block his move. So they waited for the Mexican.

  Who was at the moment parked several streets away, in his Ford LTD, reading a sort of comic book with great interest. The comic book, a simple four-fold, was printed on thick, oil-proof paper, and its illustrations, drawn with the uncompromising clarity of Socialist Realism, showed how to set up, aim, and fire the RPG-7 rocket launcher. El Chivato had taken one of these weapons from the warehouse, together with a rack of three missiles for it, attached to a convenient backpack. He finished the comic book and compared its illustrations to the fat green, pipe-like device on his lap. After a little study he was able to load and arm the thing. The illustrations seemed to assume that two men would operate the weapon, but it was also clear that it could be loaded and fired by one. He flicked up the sight assembly and peered through it at the peaceful Brooklyn street. He returned the arming lever to the safe position and placed the rocket launcher on the passenger seat beside him.

  As El Chivato drove off, he was extremely angry, actually more than angry (since he was angry most of the time), rather in a state beyond anger, a kind of single-minded, icy murderous calm. It had been a long time since someone had tried to set him up, and then it had been an extremely clever trap, involving a woman and occurring in a place where he had every reason to feel secure. He had killed four people for that (including the woman, who was, in fact, the first person he had actually skinned entire), and so no one had ever tried it again. To be set up in this incredibly clumsy way not only required vengeance as a professional matter, but involved a personal insult as well—did they really imagine him to be stupid! Beyond that, he was angry because, naturally, he would have to kill Lucky and all his party, and search out the Obregon brothers and kill them too, which meant, unless he was extraordinarily fortunate, a long search in New York, and perhaps Mexico, which meant that he might miss Easter with his family. And he did not feel fortunate anymore. His side ached. The wound was puffy and swollen. He had not had a bath in several days, having left the apartment where he killed the policeman. Now he lived in the car. This added to his anger, for he enjoyed being neat and clean.

  At five-thirty, right on schedule, El Chivato pulled into the gas station. He did not drive up to the vacant pump island as if buying ten gallons of ghost hi-test, but parked just in from the street, turning the car so that the passenger side faced the island and the station structures.

  Khalid saw the car stop, saw the boy get out. He hoped that his gunmen would wait, as he had instructed, until the little shit was well within the shadow of the pump-island shelter before opening fire. Then he saw the flash and instantly thereafter heard a peculiar flat, whooshing noise.

  To anyone who spent the seventies in Beirut, as Khalid had, that particular flash and noise were nearly as familiar as the sound of traffic. Every one of the innumerable contending parties of that sad town had accumulated Soviet rocket launchers in numbers and used them with enthusiasm. They were not as common as Kalashnikovs, but common enough. Khalid had never had one fired directly at him before: it was like a tiny approaching sun with a black dot in its center. Almost without thought he dived over the counter and lay flat on the floor, with the Samsonite suitcase pulled close over his head and his knees drawn up in fetal position.

  The rocket smashed through the plate-glass window and the double wallboard wall behind the counter. Antitank rockets need to hit something massive before they will explode, and this particular rocket found it in the rear concrete wall of the
garage. Khalid heard a dull boom as the warhead blasted a foot-wide hole through the wall and sprayed the area behind it with molten steel and concrete.

  A long ten seconds of silence. Khalid heard the sound of a submachine gun opening up—Jemil in the car out on the apron, from the sound, and then another from the Dumpster—Big Mahmoud, leaning on the trigger as usual. He would spray only the clouds and the trees shooting at that rate and probably a few bystanders as well. Khalid did not intend to stay around to find out which. He crawled through broken glass to the door that led from the office to the repair bays, and scuttled, bent nearly double, to the rear door of the garage.

  The Mercury was there, smoking gently, no longer white. It had not received the full blast of the rocket’s charge, but a by-blow had been sufficient to render it permanently undriveable. Khalid said “Elaghkna!” (shit) and ran for the left side of the building. Poking his head around the corner at knee level, he observed that Jemil was still directing controlled fire at the Mexican’s car, which he now recognized as the Ford LTD Bashar had used. It was doubtful that he was doing any damage to the man, however, not with 9mm Parabellum. Khalid could not help but admire the positioning of the Mexican’s car, blocking lines of fire from the parked cars and all obvious cover on either side of the building. He really should have put someone on the roof with a Kalashnikov, he thought, but who could have imagined … ? What should be happening now was for Jemil to lay down a base of fire from the Dart and for Mahmoud, who was pouring slugs senselessly into the wreckage of the LTD, to work his way among the old tires to take the Mexican on his right flank, but Mahmoud would not have the sense to do this. When Mahmoud’s firing paused, Khalid yelled out in Arabic the order to do just that. Back came the shout, “I have no more ammunition.” Perfect. Then there was another flash-whoosh. Khalid ducked back behind the building and covered his head with his arms.

  This rocket penetrated the engine block of the Dart and did what it was designed to do, which was to turn a small mass of solid steel into white-hot liquid. The car turned instantly into a fireball. The cars on either side burst into flame. Thick, choking black smoke poured into the air. From where he stood, Khalid could no longer see the Mexican’s car. He assumed that the Mexican could not see him either, and made his move. Pistol in hand, he raced around the rear ends of the flaming cars and, with a step on the running board, dived into the open window of the wrecker. There he found Hussein, crouched in the well of the driver’s side, holding his submachine gun like a teddy bear. There was white showing all around the pupils of his eyes as he stammered, “Effendi, I did not know what to do.”

  “Then I will tell you what to do, Hussein,” said Khalid slowly, gasping for breath. “Start this vehicle and drive away.”

  Enveloped in thick smoke, El Chivato did not see Khalid make his escape, but he heard the engine of the wrecker roar into life and saw the red blur as it pulled away from the curb. He heard sirens from many different directions. Even in Brooklyn, it is not possible to have a battle involving serious military hardware without attracting the attention to the authorities. El Chivato loaded his last rocket and carefully placed it with the rest of his equipment in a green duffel bag. He slung its strap across his chest, bandoleer style, and walked out of the smoke.

  Cars were slowing down on Fulton Street to view the fire. No one took any notice of the slim youth as he walked quickly up the center line of the roadway. He could see the high red crane of the wrecker several streets ahead. At the first red light he walked up to the driver’s side of the first car in line and stuck dead Bashar’s 9mm Smith in the driver’s face.

  The car was a black Chrysler New Yorker. As soon as El Chivato was in the driver’s seat, he gunned the engine and took off after the wrecker, cutting through the intersection of Fulton Street and Ralph Avenue against the light and causing a chorus of horns and two minor traffic accidents.

  This maneuver caught the attention of the RMP called Seven Frank, manned by patrolmen Ed Graves and Manolo Echeverria. Seven Frank was a Seventy-ninth Precinct RMP, and it was responding to the “shots fired” call as a matter of routine. Seeing the smoke and hearing the fire engine sirens and seeing a large black car zoom through the intersection created a picture in the minds of the two patrolmen, a non-routine picture. Without a word Graves, who was driving, hooked a U-turn on Fulton and took off in pursuit. Echeverria called in the action and gave a description of the vehicle and its heading.

  El Chivato swerved around a line of cars, driving down the center line of Fulton Street until he was directly behind the wrecker. He saw the flasher and heard the siren of the police car behind him, but paid no attention to it. He steered with his left hand, and with his right worked the wire-stocked AK-47 out of the duffel bag and placed it across his lap. After a moment he reached in again and brought out two Soviet RGN hand grenades and placed them in the cushioned rectangular hollow between the front seats that most drivers use to hold coffee cups and toll change.

  Ahead, Hussein checked his rearview and spotted the Mexican tailgating them behind the wheel of the black sedan. Hussein was a much better driver than he was a street fighter, and he had a heavy, powerful vehicle to demonstrate it. He swerved from side to side, keeping the Mexican from coming up on his flank, and incidentally driving a half dozen cars into crashes of varying severity.

  In Seven Frank, Patrolman Echeverria was working his radio, talking to his dispatcher, impressing upon her that this was something out of the ordinary. The dispatcher was responding, calling other RMPs in the area to set up a block somewhere up ahead.

  “Holy shit!” said Patrolman Echeverria. This was not a phrase recognized in NYPD radio parlance. The dispatcher came back with, “Say again, Seven Frank.”

  Echeverria said, “We’re taking automatic fire! A white male on the tow truck ahead of the black Chrysler, he just leaned out the window and fired an automatic weapon at us.”

  The dispatcher acknowledged this and fielded calls from RMPs Three Eddie and Eight George, who said they were converging on the junction of Fulton Street and Bedford Avenue. They intended to close Fulton east-bound to avoid more civilian casualties, and wait for the fleeing vehicles to arrive. The dispatcher also fielded a call from Boy Sector ESU, which declared itself rolling toward the scene. The emergency service unit consisted of twelve heavily armed, specially trained police officers wearing attractive black costumes, Kevlar vests, helmets, and face shields. The dispatcher, hearing this, declared a “no further” on the call, on the reasonable assumption that this unit and the three RMPs represented enough police power to handle a couple of cars full of bad guys.

  On the wide running board of the wrecker, Chouza Khalid fired another four rounds from Hussein’s Model 25, and cursed as they went high, shattering the light bar of the police car following. It was an impossible shooting task: he had to hold on to the door frame with his left hand and try to fire one-handed with his right, while the wrecker swerved this way and that and bounced wildly on the decrepit surface of the thoroughfare. He gave up and swung himself back into the seat, just in time to hear Hussein shriek, “What should I do? What should I do?”

  Two police cars with their lights flashing were parked athwart the street, partially blocking all four lanes of the thoroughfare. White-helmeted police crouched behind the cars, and beyond these Khalid saw the flashing lights of a large blue and white van, which must mean reinforcements.

  “Right turn!” screamed Khalid. “Don’t stop, smash through!”

  This is what Hussein did: he floored the gas pedal, swung right, struck Three Eddie, the right-lane RMP, behind its rear wheel and knocked it skidding out of the way like a child’s toy. The two officers sheltering behind it, Joshua Rollins and Paula Nolan, were both dashed flat. The officers from Eight North fired after the wrecker but did not damage the massive vehicle.

  El Chivato stepped on it too, roaring through the hole the wrecker had made in the roadblock like a running back following a guard. A bullet smashed throug
h the left rear window of the Chrysler, spattering the back of his neck with sharp flakes of glass. He cursed, grabbed one of the grenades, pulled the pin, and tossed it backward out the window.

  The grenade bounced twice and rolled, spending its forward velocity. After four seconds it exploded, three feet from the driver’s-side door of Seven Frank as it raced through the roadblock in hot pursuit.

  Echeverria saw the flash and felt the heat of it, and heard the enormously loud sound. Something hard and hot slapped him on the side of the head. He looked over at Graves, who had no face and was on fire. Echeverria noted that he himself was on fire too, and that there was something that looked like a human lower jaw on his lap. Then Seven Frank crashed into the side of a parked truck.

  Patrolman Lou Kravitzki of RMP Eight North sprang into his vehicle and grabbed the radio handset. He was the only cop available to do this at the roadblock, because his partner, Tom Parmignano, was giving CPR to Joshua Rollins, who looked to be going into shock with a cracked skull. Into the handset he shouted, “Eight North to Central. Ten-thirteen! Ten-thirteen! Officers down! Three … no, four officers down!”

  As these magic words hit the air, the police world of north Brooklyn was transformed. The dispatcher pressed a button that generated a rapid, high beeping on all channels, and she repeated the message that police officers were injured at the junction of Fulton and Bedford. Kravitzki told his story over the air. Grenades. Machine guns. The cops in every RMP within five miles dropped what they were doing and sped forthwith to join the pursuit.