Double Scotch

by Steven Henry

  Erin already had her phone out and was calling Dispatch. “This is O'Reilly, shield four-six-four-oh. I have a 10-13S at the Barley Corner pub. All available units.”

  “Ten-four, O'Reilly,” Dispatch replied. “Stand by.”

  Erin turned to Carlyle. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “He's coming after you.”

  Chapter 10

  The gunfire downstairs hadn't lasted long. Everything was quiet now. Erin had seen the thickness of the door to Carlyle's apartment. It would hold against anything short of a missile launcher. Backup was inbound. All they had to do was sit tight and the cavalry would arrive in five minutes at most, maybe less.

  Except she couldn't do that. There were civilians downstairs. She'd counted four people in the pub when they'd gone up. Some might be wounded. Some might be uninjured but still in danger. It wasn't her job to duck and cover when bullets started flying. Cops were supposed to go toward the sound of the shooting.

  She drew her Glock and press-checked it to make sure a round was chambered. “Stay here,” she said to Carlyle. “Lock the door behind me.”

  “Bugger that,” Carlyle said. His face had gone very rigid, but he remained outwardly calm. “I'll watch your back.”

  She didn't have time for this. “No!” she snapped, stepping into the hallway and angling for the stairs. “Keep out of this. You're a civilian!”

  He was right behind her. “Nay,” he said with surprising gentleness, “I'm not. And those are my own people down there.”

  “Damn it,” she growled, “stay behind this door. That's an order!”

  She dropped a hand to Rolf's collar, getting ready to unsnap his leash. The Shepherd had picked up on her mood. His hackles rose on his neck. He was ready.

  Carlyle was saying something else, still arguing. She ignored him. Her heart pounded in her ears. She went over the layout of the pub in her head, trying to remember who'd been sitting in which seats, where there was good cover, where she'd go.

  She was about halfway down the stairs when the door exploded.

  There wasn't time to duck, to say anything, to think. All she saw was a bright flash. Then a giant invisible hand slapped her entire body and flung her back against the stairs. Her head smacked against the corner of one of the steps. She didn't hear the explosion. She didn't hear anything at all. She felt a high-pitched thrumming vibration in her eardrums.

  Erin couldn't tell which way was up. Sunbursts flashed in front of her eyes. The only sense that seemed to be working properly was her sense of smell. She smelled smoke and something hot and coppery.

  Breaching charge, she thought disjointedly. Something was supposed to happen right afterward. Something important.

  She was moving. It felt like falling, except she was moving up instead of down. That didn't make any sense. She tried to clear her head.

  Then she remembered where she was. Someone had his hands under her arms and was hauling her up the stairs backward. Someone else was in the doorway below, a stocky guy wearing a ski mask. He was holding some sort of gun.

  Erin tried to shout, to identify herself as NYPD, but her ears still weren't working right. She didn't know if any sound came out of her mouth or not. It didn't matter. The man was clearly about to shoot her.

  She raised her right hand. Her Glock was still in it, somehow. She wrapped her other hand around the grip, aimed between her own feet, and pulled the trigger three times.

  The shock of the recoil traveled up her arms. She heard the gunshots, as if they were coming from a great distance. Her hearing must be coming back, she thought distractedly.

  But her inner ear still wasn't up to snuff. The range was less than fifteen feet, and the target didn't go down. Her shooting instructor would've chewed her ass out for missing at that distance. She'd given the perp something to think about, though. He ducked back behind the doorframe.

  Then she was in the upstairs hallway again, with no clear idea of how she'd gotten there. The person who'd dragged her up had let go of her. Two faces were peering down at her. One was black and furry, with very large, pointed ears. The other was a silver-haired man. Both looked anxious.

  “Erin!”

  She heard Carlyle, faintly, and sat up. She almost fell back down again, but managed to stay half upright. She pointed her gun at the stairwell. No one had come up the stairs yet.

  Carlyle was kneeling beside her, asking her a question. She forced herself to focus.

  “What do you need?” he repeated.

  “Get your gun,” she said, forming her words carefully. There was something wet on her upper lip. She licked it and tasted blood. Her nose must be bleeding.

  “I don't keep a gun,” he said.

  She couldn't believe it. Trapped with the only unarmed mobster in New York.

  A staccato burst of gunfire tore into the plaster at the top of the stairs. The attackers were using submachine-guns. They were also using military-style tactics, which meant one of them was laying down covering fire while at least one more moved forward. Erin had seconds before bad guys would be swarming up the stairs.

  “Get my extra piece,” she told Carlyle. “Right ankle.”

  Carlyle bent forward and slid his hand up her lower leg, finding the gun and pulling it free. It was an oddly intimate touch, Erin thought, then told herself to get her shit together and think clearly. Carlyle knelt next to her, holding the tiny pocket-pistol in both hands.

  The blunt muzzle of a submachine-gun poked around the corner. Muzzle flashes flared, the unseen gunman sweeping the hallway. Then the man charged. But he'd aimed at chest height. Erin was sitting down and Carlyle was crouched low. He'd fired too high.

  Erin's reflexes were better than Carlyle's, even dazed as she was. Her first shot clipped the attacker high up on the shoulder. He was knocked halfway around and her next bullet whipped past him. Then Carlyle fired. His bullet smashed into the gunman's right arm just above the elbow. The submachine-gun dropped to the floor.

  Erin very nearly shot the masked man again out of sheer instinct. But she hesitated when she saw his empty hands. He was clutching his arm, hunched over in pain.

  “Get down on the floor!” she shouted.

  He didn't move.

  “Get down, or I'll shoot you in the goddamn face!” she yelled at him. Another guy was likely to come up the stairs any moment, and she wanted a clear field of fire when he did.

  “Was sagen Sie?” the man said through gritted teeth.

  “I'm not certain he speaks English,” Carlyle said in Erin's ear.

  Erin shifted gears. “Sitz!” she shouted at the man, gesturing with her pistol. “Bleib!”

  The guy looked startled, in spite of his pain. He sat down immediately and heavily, still clutching his arm. Rolf, almost equally surprised, did the same.

  Erin and Carlyle kept their guns trained down the hallway. Seconds passed.

  Nothing happened.

  “You know German?” Carlyle asked after several endless moments. His tone was light and conversational. Her hearing was definitely coming back.

  “Rolf's from Germany,” she said, neither of them looking away from the stairwell while they talked. “It was easier to train me than to retrain him.”

  “Ah,” Carlyle said. “I fear I've never learned a foreign tongue. Unless, of course, you count American English.”

  “Depends what part of America,” Erin said, thinking this was a pretty strange thing to be talking about.

  “Do you think any other lads will be coming upstairs?” he asked.

  “You know these guys better than I do,” she replied.

  They heard sirens outside, closing rapidly.

  “I'm thinking they've gone,” Carlyle said. “Lads like that don't hang about when the coppers come calling. Perhaps you should send your loyal hound in pursuit?”

  Erin shook her head. “He's not wearing his vest,” she said. She got her feet under her and stood up, still a little shaky. Carlyle, ever the gentleman, rose alongside her and offered his arm
. She leaned on him for a second while she got her balance. “Those assholes have automatic weapons,” she added. “I'm not sending Rolf on his own.”

  From downstairs, through the open doorway, came the shouts of “NYPD!” From the sound of it, two or three units had arrived.

  “NYPD!” Erin shouted back. “Upstairs clear! I've got one in custody! We'll need a bus.” She walked slowly down the hall to the wounded man and kicked the fallen gun away from him. She didn't know the German words for what she wanted him to do, but a little gunpoint pantomime got the message across. He lay down on his stomach. She frisked him and found a Sig-Sauer automatic pistol in his belt. She took it away from him.

  After ensuring the prisoner posed no immediate threat, Erin turned to Carlyle. “I'm gonna need my gun back,” she said. She was already trying to think how she'd explain this in her report. She'd given a police firearm to a known associate of a major criminal organization.

  He reversed the pistol and extended it to her, grip-first. “It's just as well,” he said. “I'm no great hand with a revolver.”

  As she took her backup weapon, she saw the sleeve of his gray suit coat was torn. “You had a close call there,” she said. Then she saw the dark stain on the shirt underneath. “Shit. You've been hit!”

  Carlyle looked down at his arm. “Aye, it seems I have.”

  “Why didn't you say something?”

  “You'd a great deal with which to concern yourself,” he said. “It's not bad, I'm thinking. Hardly more than a scratch.”

  Then he went pale and leaned against the wall as the excitement of the fight started to drain out of him. “Perhaps I'll sit for a moment, if it's no bother,” he said.

  Three uniformed officers rushed up the stairs. Erin held up her shield.

  “That's one of them,” she said, pointing to the downed gunman.

  “What about him?” one of the patrolmen asked, pointing to Carlyle.

  “He's the owner,” she said. “Get that damn bus here!” She turned her full attention to Carlyle. “Let's have a look at that arm.”

  “Never mind the arm,” he said. “What about my people?”

  “We've got two dead downstairs,” a patrolman said with unthinking harshness.

  Erin thought of Danny the bartender, with his cheerful smile. “Who?” she said through a mouth gone suddenly dry.

  “Couple of wiseguys,” another officer said. “Lots of ink on their arms, both of them strapped. One got his piece out, but looks like he never got the chance to use it.”

  Carlyle closed his eyes and said nothing.

  “What about the others?” Erin asked.

  “What others?” the first patrolman replied. “I didn't see anyone else. We came straight up. We got more uniforms downstairs, clearing the place. They ought to know.”

  “Hold still,” Erin said to Carlyle. He was trying to push past the police to the stairs. “You're bleeding and you're gonna make it worse.”

  “The sooner you let me see to my folk, the sooner I'll let you see to my arm,” he retorted.

  The injury wasn't bleeding all that heavily, as far as Erin could see, and unless she was prepared to manhandle him, the best thing to do was probably to figure out what had happened to the rest of the Corner's population.

  “Detective, you're bleeding, too,” an officer said, pointing to her face.

  She wiped at her upper lip. Her fingers came away with a smear of red.

  “Nosebleed,” she said. “I'm fine.”

  “Look at that,” the second officer said. “Your dog's got one, too. Never seen a dog with a nosebleed.”

  It was true. Rolf had a slow leak going from his nostrils. He swiped his snout clean with his tongue and looked at her for further instructions, apparently unconcerned.

  Leaving her wounded prisoner with the patrol officers, Erin went downstairs with Carlyle and Rolf. She wondered what sort of war zone she'd find. From the size of the explosion that'd blown in the door, she expected the bar to look like an artillery shell had hit it.

  She was mistaken. The door was blasted open, a jagged hole torn clean through it where the lock had been. The hinges were twisted and bent, but the rest of the room had taken remarkably little damage. The bar appeared totally intact, with the exception of a cluster of bullet holes in one of the booths. Two bodies were sprawled there, white tank tops soaked with blood.

  More NYPD reinforcements had arrived. Seven officers were milling around, examining the scene. Two were talking to Danny and the waitress, who appeared unharmed. Erin's heart leaped with relief at the sight of them. The waitress was clutching Danny's arm just above the elbow, leaning against him for physical and moral support.

  “So what did you see, Miss Tierney?” one of the cops asked her.

  “I was behind the bar when they came in,” she said. “Ned... Ned had ordered a pint of Guinness. Danny was pouring it for me. I didn't see them, but Danny did, over my shoulder. He dropped the glass on the floor.” She pointed behind the bar. Erin glanced over and saw a pool of spilled stout, studded with shards of broken glass.

  “He just grabbed me and pulled me down,” the girl continued. “He lay on top of me. I wanted to yell at him, but he'd knocked the wind out of me. By the time I could talk, there was... shooting. They... they shot Ned and... and Vern.” She paused, making an effort to steady her voice. “Danny held me down and we didn't make a sound. Some men were talking in some other language, German I think. Then there was a really loud bang and more shooting. After that, I heard a couple of guys running. They went out the back.”

  “How many of these men were there, total?” the officer asked.

  “I saw three,” Danny said.

  “Could you identify them?”

  He shook his head. “They were wearing masks.”

  The waitress looked up at him with undisguised admiration. “Danny didn't even cut me on the broken glass,” she said. “He saved my life.”

  “Caitlin's exaggerating,” he said. “Anybody would've done the same thing. We were lucky.” Danny spoke calmly, but his hands were shaking.

  Erin briefly considered going after the departed bad guys. Rolf could track them as long as they were on foot. But there'd be time for that in a little while, and besides, they'd almost certainly hopped into a getaway car. Right now, she had a wounded man to attend to. “Okay, Carlyle,” she said to him. “There's nothing else you can do for your people right now. Take off that coat.”

  She managed to maneuver him to a table and sit him down. He took off his suit coat. Underneath, he wore a white silk shirt and a dark charcoal necktie. The shirtsleeve was torn and bloody.

  “The shirt, too,” she said.

  “Erin, darling,” he said. “Under other circumstances, that's an invitation a great many lads might welcome.” He loosened the knot of his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Not tonight,” she shot back with a grim smile. “I'm not in the mood.”

  He smiled at her and gingerly eased his wounded arm out of its sleeve. He was in excellent condition, and not just for a guy pushing fifty. His chest and shoulders were lean but well-muscled. The effect was a little spoiled by the blood running down his right bicep. Erin carefully probed his arm with her fingertips. The bullet had torn a furrow along the outside of his upper arm, missing the bone.

  “You're gonna be fine,” she said, giving him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “It didn't hit anything but meat, in and out. You'll just want a few stitches on this. Couple of weeks, you'll be doing pushups again.”

  “Now just what am I interrupting?” a voice exclaimed from the doorway in a thick Irish brogue.

  Erin's head whipped around. James Corcoran, Corky to his friends, stood just inside the pub.

  “For Christ's sake!” a police sergeant exclaimed. “Jacoby, I told you to secure the goddamn perimeter!”

  The officer in question gave his sergeant a helpless shrug. “I dunno how he got past me, Sarge.”

  “Well, get him th
e hell out of here!” the sergeant snapped. “This is a crime scene!”

  “I'll say it is,” Corky said, scanning Erin and the half-clad Carlyle. “It appears I've stumbled on all manner of depravity.” As Officer Jacoby made a grab for him, he sidestepped so quickly and neatly it looked almost like a dance move. “I was in the neighborhood, Cars. Everything under control? I see Ned and Vern copped it.”

  “We'll talk later, Corks,” Carlyle said.

  “God damn it!” the sergeant shouted, making a move toward Corky. “Outside. Now!”

  “I understand,” Corky said, giving Erin a very suggestive wink. “Some things, a lass needs her privacy.”

  Erin was still trying to think of a stinging retort as Corky slipped back out of the Corner, closely pursued by two police, but somehow managing to make it look like leaving was his own idea.

  Erin looked at Carlyle. There was a second of silence. Then both of them started laughing, with only a hint of hysteria.

  The patrol officers looked at one another and shook their heads. There was just no accounting for detectives.

  Chapter 11

  “Remember the last time we were all in this bar together?” Webb demanded. He had his hands on his hips, a smoldering cigarette poking out from between two of his fingers.

  “Yes, sir,” Erin said.

  “It was pretty much the same, am I right?” Webb went on. “Jones. Jog my memory. No, wait. Never mind. I know the difference. Last time, the bomb didn't go off. This time it did. Oh, and this time there's two bodies, a hospital case, and an officer-involved shooting. Am I missing anything?”

  It didn't seem like a good time to speak up, so Erin didn't.

  “Lieutenant, I'm merely grateful Detective O'Reilly was present,” Carlyle said. The EMTs had bandaged up his flesh wound and he'd put on a clean shirt and tie. He was calm again, polite, and pleasant. “She saved not merely my own life, but Caitlin's and Danny's as well. I'd like to extend my personal gratitude to the New York Police Department.”