Last Shot

by Jay Nadal

  “Just tell me who’s in there with you.” He knew he was pushing it. He knew that a city negotiator wouldn’t deliberately antagonize the hostage taker, but he needed to know. He had to know how many there were and try to persuade Clinton to keep talking. And he couldn’t do that without talking himself.

  “Come on, Clinton. Just tell me who’s in there.”

  “I got three. Okay, Mr. Po-liceman? I got a girl and a man and a woman. I got two bros and a Mexican, and I don’t fuckin’ care about killin’ any of ’em. Ya get me?”

  The window of the door exploded outward as he fired another shot, then another. Pain lanced through Cade’s ears, the sound of the shot drove into his head like a hammered spike. He waited a moment for the worst of the ringing to clear. He stood, no chance of hearing clearly what Clinton was saying from inside now. That left the final option.

  “Clinton. I’m going to come in. But I’m throwing down my weapon. Do you hear? I’m coming in unarmed. Then you can have a cop hostage and let the others go. Deal, Clinton?”

  He didn’t wait for a reply. He crouched and tossed his gun low across the front of the store, letting anyone inside see it land, see that it was clearly a semiautomatic handgun. Next went the nightstick. He knew it clattered loudly against the pavement, but he barely heard it.

  His head was full of his own heartbeat, underscored by the constant whine of abused eardrums. Lifting his hands above his head, he slowly stepped out in front of the door. He didn’t move another muscle.

  The door’s upper pane of glass had been torn free. Framed in the aperture was a black man with a haggard face. His cheekbones were prominent, eyes sunken. His hair was a wild halo. Spit gathered at the corners of his mouth. The store was in shambles.

  A terrified Mexican girl stood behind the counter, hands raised. Blood streaked her face and her blouse. A man lay on the floor, his body entangled in broken bottles and shelving. Blood pooled below him in a congealing mass. Flies were already flitting in and out of the pool. A black man and woman were also standing behind the counter, hands over their heads.

  “Can I come in, Clinton?” Cade asked quietly.

  Reeves nodded. He held a handgun which wavered with the smallest movement of his body. It was pointing at Cade, but with quick, twitchy movements, he swung it toward the hostages. Cade found himself timing those swings and gauging how fast he could cover the ground between himself and Reeves.

  He made himself forget it. He wasn’t about to put the lives of those three at risk because of some kind of half-assed action hero complex.

  He opened the door and stepped inside. Glass crunched underfoot. The stench of spilled liquor mixed with the smell of blood. A sour tang of sweat rode over everything.

  Reeves’s eyes were open as wide as they could go. His face was slick, sweat dripping from his chin. Cade took two slow, deliberate steps into the store, not once averting his gaze from Reeves’s eyes.

  “Just me, Clinton. No one else and no guns. Now you’ve got a real hostage. How about letting those others go, huh?”

  “I need ’em. The cops’ll kill me, man. They’ll come in here and kill me.”

  “No one’s going to hurt you. Not if you let them go. The cops will see you’ve got compassion,” Cade said.

  “No way. I need ’em. I need ’em. I need a drink. I need a drink. Give me something to drink.”

  Cade looked around him and spotted an intact bottle of vodka.

  “I’ve got something for you, Clinton. I’m going to reach down and pick it up. Okay, son?”

  Reeves nodded frantically, saliva dribbling from his mouth. Cade reached down and picked up the bottle. He held it out. Reeves reached for it and, for a moment, the bottle wavered in the air between them before Reeves finally grasped it. Cade stole the opportunity to move closer. He kept his hands down, wanting Reeves to forget the image of him as a prisoner.

  “What are we doing here, son?” Cade asked quietly.

  Reeves smashed the neck of the bottle and guzzled vodka in huge swallows as he lifted it over his head. Cade could feel himself tensing. Suddenly, Reeves was spitting the vodka out. He hurled it away from himself to shatter against the wall above the head of the Mexican girl, Constanza.

  “It’s poison. You trying to poison me? Me? You know who I am? You know. Who. I. Am?” This last was a bellow. The gun was pointed at Cade’s face. They were closer now, only the body on the floor separating them.

  “I know your name. Something else I should know?” Cade asked.

  “I’m a three-time loser. I go away for the rest of my life, man. I can’t do that. They were going to lock me up and throw away the key. But I didn’t do nothin’. I didn’t do nothin’!”

  There were tears in his eyes. His cheeks were damp and glistening, his eyes wet. He scrubbed at his face with one hand and tightened his grip on the gun.

  “Then let me help you,” Cade offered.

  Reeves quickly shook his head. “No, man. No one can help me.”

  “I’m a cop. I promise I can help you,” Cade said.

  “They busted me for possession. You don’t go to no fed’ral jail for possession. I only had one skin. A smoke of fry.”

  Cade was beginning to see. Reeves was undoubtedly a junkie, his body on the verge of collapse, and he had been busted for the third time on a minor charge. But this was Texas, and the third time was the killer. He would spend the rest of his life in a hellhole.

  And it was probably a bust by an officer just like Rivera, eyes on the five-year promotion and already planning their rise to lieutenant. What was Clinton Reeves? An addict, probably with a long rap sheet and two previous violent crimes. Maybe even killed someone. A dangerous criminal off the streets, then.

  Except, maybe those two violent offenses were drunken brawls in the street. Or an assault while out of his mind on PCP or crack. No excuses, but what purpose did prison serve other than revenge? What hope was there that Clinton Reeves would emerge from his sentence a changed man? He couldn’t change. His addiction, his poverty, held him in a vise that he couldn’t break free from.

  “I understand, Clinton. Let me help you,” Cade said calmly, his voice even and soothing.

  “I needed money to get away. If they’re going to send me away for life anyway, what have I got to lose?”

  He was pointing the gun directly at the hostages now. It moved down the line as though he were contemplating killing each one. Then it swung back again onto Cade. Reeves’s face broke apart, tears smothering his features. The gun shook with every sob.

  “Just put that thing down, and let’s talk. You and me. That gun just causes problems. My partner and I are the only ones here. There’s no one else. Put the gun down. Nobody is waiting to kill you.”

  Cade’s chest was tight. He felt like he hadn’t taken a deep breath for hours. His legs ached from maintaining the tautness of his muscles, ready to move. A pounding had started behind his eyes. He recognized it as an adrenaline hangover.

  The gun was going down. Somewhere behind him, he caught hurried whispers as Rivera spoke into her radio. She looked as scared as the perp.

  It began as a sound. A whimpering that grew in pitch and volume as the person responsible worked themselves up to make a break for freedom. Cade had heard the noise and recognized its importance.

  He began to turn toward the three hostages. Sure enough, the man was moving slowly toward the door. He caught Cade’s eyes for a moment, and Cade willed him to stop. The whimpering suddenly broke into a sob, and the man dashed for the door.

  Cade reacted at the same time by lunging for Reeves. But Reeves had already seen the man beginning to run. It was too late to stop him—the gun was firing.

  Two rounds hit the man in the back, dropping him instantly. Rivera saw and returned fire from the doorway. Cade saw the gun track back toward him as he reached Reeves. Cade dropped his shoulder and slammed into Reeves. He felt a blaze of pain in his thigh and an impact that knocked him sideways. More shots rang out around
him. Then everything went still.

  6

  Someone was screaming—screaming hard. Cade found himself staring at the ceiling and realized he must have passed out. Why was that? He tried to get to his feet, but his left leg wasn’t cooperating.

  “Keep still, Thomas,” said a male voice, calm and competent. “The bullet missed the femoral artery, but it’s still in there.”

  That’s when Cade registered the strobing blue lights that flashed on and off across the ceiling. He was still lying on the floor in the liquor store.

  Glass fragments covered him like a sprinkling of fairy dust. Flakes of dried blood criss-crossed his bare hands and arms from the scything fragments. As he moved, many broke open. Bright red oozed from multiple small gashes.

  There were flashes of white light as police photographers got their pictures of Reeves’s body. He lay on his side, back toward Cade. Cade didn’t need to see the gaping exit wounds to know the man was dead. He felt a deep sense of regret.

  Reeves had been every bit the victim as the people he had murdered. He was a human being driven to desperation by a chemical need that his body couldn’t handle. He hadn’t been born that way. That’s what happened when you had the misfortune to be born to Sunnyside parents. There should have been another way.

  And then a second impact slammed into Cade. It hit him with a force that sucked his breath away.

  “Alexa,” he gasped.

  He searched around frantically but couldn’t see his partner anywhere.

  “Thomas, I need you to keep still. I have to stabilize your leg, or the bullet could become dislodged and do more damage,” the paramedic said again, a note of urgency breaking through the professional detachment.

  A strong pair of hands grabbed his shoulders and tried to force him down. The hands were gloved in white latex and smelled strongly of alcohol-based disinfectant. He struggled against the grip.

  “Where’s my partner? Alexa Rivera. Where is she?” he demanded again.

  “I don’t know, Officer. My job is keeping you alive.”

  Lie. The man wasn’t meeting his eyes, choosing instead to focus entirely on the splint he was applying to Cade’s tourniqueted leg. And then he saw Grillo coming toward him—Marcus Grillo, another Sunnyside cop. His face was iron, and he didn’t look away as he met Cade’s eyes. Cade struggled more.

  “Grillo. Where is she? Where’s Alexa? Tell me she’s okay,” Cade called out.

  Grillo knelt beside Cade and pushed him down, helping the paramedics to keep him prone.

  The hard expression on Grillo’s face met Cade’s look of worry. “I’m sorry, buddy. She didn’t make it.”

  7

  “Just put that thing down, and let’s talk. You and me. That gun just causes problems. My partner and I are the only ones here. There’s no one else. Put the gun down. Nobody is waiting to kill you.”

  Reeves stared at him with the eyes of a cornered animal. He had been staring into the abyss, seeing his own death. But Cade could see the first faint glimmerings of hope in those hooded eyes. He could almost hear the thoughts percolating through Reeves’s drug-addled brain.

  Could he trust this cop? Was this guy any different to all the rest? Maybe this was the turning point. Maybe this guy would help him. Maybe this wasn’t the end he had seen racing toward him when he had fled the scene of his arrest for possession.

  Cade turned to see one of the hostages begin to run. It was Alexa Rivera.

  “No, Alexa. Don’t do it,” Cade yelled, but she was sprinting for the doorway.

  Reeves fired twice, and Rivera was dropped in midstride. Reeves turned the gun back to the other hostages: the two boys Cade had stopped from fighting in the street, and an unnamed black girl who Cade had glimpsed being protected from a gangster boyfriend by her grandmother.

  Reeves began firing. Cade drew his own weapon and fired at Reeves. The gun clicked, but nothing happened. Reeves was still pumping rounds into the three hostages. Cade fired again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against the side of Reeves’s head, and still nothing.

  Moses Mohammed stood in the doorway of the store looking around with disgust.

  “Man, you really messed this up, Tommy. Should have left it to me. I told you. I told you, I know what I’m doing. These are my people, not yours. My business.”

  Then Reeves was turning his gun on Cade.

  Cade woke with a jolt. It took a supreme effort of will not to cry out. Sweat soaked the pillow beneath his head. He stared at the ceiling and tried to control his breathing. Sunlight painted yellow and black bars across the ceiling where it slanted through the blinds.

  A machine somewhere behind him gave off a soft but incessant beeping. There were wires attached to his chest. A nurse bustled into the room.

  “Hi, Tommy,” she said in a cheery voice. “Seems you’ve dislodged one of your lines again. You really get some exercise when you’re sleeping, don’t you?”

  She put on a pair of latex gloves.

  “Soon, we’ll have you connected back up again. We’ll get that machine quiet, huh?”

  A figure appeared at the door.

  “Uh, nurse. Can I come in?”

  It was Sergeant Cruz, cap in his hands. It seemed odd to see the man waiting tentatively to be given permission to enter. When he did so, he moved carefully, casting a wary eye over the equipment Cade was hooked up to, as though expecting he might accidentally break something.

  “How you doing, Tommy boy?” he asked.

  “Great. They operated yesterday and managed to remove the bullet. There were some signs of infection, but they’re treating it with antibiotics.”

  “Good. You’ll be back with us soon enough. That’s good to hear. I thought you should know. We traced Clinton Reeves’s movements up to Wheeler’s Discount Liquor. He was picked up on the street by a patrol car in possession of PCP, but managed to get away. He laid low in a house on Wilmington. An old couple lived there. It seems he beat them to death and then shot them several times post-mortem. The gun was theirs. They didn’t get to it in time. Anyway, thought you should know. The scumbag got what he deserved. One less junkie on the streets, right?”

  “Right,” Cade said numbly.

  Did Clinton Reeves even deserve his sympathy anymore? The child that Reeves once had been must have played in his backyard like any other child. Must have cried when he was hurt and laughed when he was happy.

  At what point did that child turn into a monster?

  For the child who had been corrupted so thoroughly, his heart bled. For the man who chose to destroy his mind with drugs to the point where he could kill five innocent people…For that man, he found himself agreeing with Cruz. He got what he deserved. He got justice.

  The realization didn’t help. There was no feeling of closure. He only felt empty.

  “Bastard got what he deserved,” Cade whispered. He felt nothing saying it.

  Cruz nodded, then clapped a wide hand onto Cade’s shoulder in manly solidarity.

  “Fucker deserved to die,” Cade whispered. Again, nothing.

  Why couldn’t he enjoy the fact that the monster that had killed his partner had seen his own miserable existence snuffed out, too? It wouldn’t bring back Alexa. But that wasn’t it. It wouldn’t bring back any of the people Reeves had so callously murdered. That was not it.

  “The doctor tells me you’ve been having bad dreams every night,” Cruz said.

  “I don’t know about every night, Sarge,” Cade protested instinctively. It was the working man’s automatic reaction to downplay his ailments and injuries and assure the boss he could still do his job.

  “Well, he said it’s every night. So, when you’re back on your feet, I want you to see Dr. Carmichael over on Travis Street.”

  “I don’t need a shrink, Sarge. I just need to get back on the horse.”

  The sergeant shook his head, giving no room for argument. “No, Tommy. This isn’t some bullshit group therapy meeting you have to
sit through when you fire your weapon. You went through a traumatic experience. Carmichael can help with that.”

  “I don’t need any help,” Cade said, his tone hardening.

  “That’s an order, Officer.” Cruz moved effortlessly into an even harder place.

  “But there’s nothing wrong with me, except I got shot in the leg…”

  “And you’ve been having nightmares ever since. Know what that is? Post-traumatic stress…”

  “Oh, come on, Cruz,” Cade said incredulously.

  “Hey. My boy came back from Iraq, and he was just the same. And the Army got him help. This isn’t the time for you to be playing the tough guy, Tommy. This can eat you up inside. You’re seeing the shrink. Or you’re not coming back. I’ve already spoken to your union rep. He’s on my side, and so is the captain.”

  “Jesus.” Cade felt a sudden upsurge of rage. His fists were clenched, and he wanted to hit Cruz in the face. He wanted to rip every fucking line out of his body and trash the machines that loomed behind his bed. His head slammed back into the pillow. Once. Twice.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. That motherfucking son of a bitch. I never should have given up my weapon. I should have just shot him in the head.”

  Cruz was standing over him now. “Enough. Listen. You did your duty as a police officer. Which was to earn his trust in order to defuse the situation and protect the hostages. You did the right thing, and had you gone in there, guns blazing, you would have lost it along with your badge. Look at yourself. This isn’t you. Goddammit, I’ve known you for ten years, and I ain’t never seen you lose control like this. Can’t you see it, man? All this stuff has to be cut out of you, or it’s going to kill you.”

  “I just keep seeing her face, Sarge. Alexa’s. She trusted me. She was looking to me for leadership, and I got her killed.”

  “I told you. You did everything you should have done. You did nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing.”

  “She’s dead, Hector. Why the fuck was a rookie assigned to fucking Sunnyside, anyway? I mean, she was nowhere near ready for that.”