The Fight (A Ray Hammer Novel Book 4)

by Aaron Leyshon

Groening tapped the microphone with his fist and McNamara winced. She felt the bruises of his fists over the bruises from the car accident, over the bruises to her ego. She leaned down to her microphone and breathed into it.

  “Quiet, please,” she said softly, almost a whisper, and an uneasy hush fell over the crowd as the rain tumbled down in big fat splotches.

  At that moment, Groening pulled a Glock 17 from his belt and fired two rounds straight up into the air. The last of the muttering in the crowd stopped. The raised fists were pulled down. People huddled forward, hunching down to avoid the wet warm drips on the backs of their necks, running down their heads, down their faces, into their mouths. McNamara and Groening were under cover at the front, at the top of the stairs, looking out over the swarms of huddled faces. Anger peered out behind sneers and grimaces.

  Groening leaned forward to his microphone. “I’m pleased to announce that former Police Chief Eliza McNamara has been found safe and well.”

  There was a murmur from the crowd that rose up from the back and surged towards the front, a wave of small voices—conjecture, wonder, thought. Why was she here with him? With these white supremacists?

  She leaned forward to her own microphone. “Thank you, Chief Groening.”

  “And we’re here to assure you today,” said Groening, “that the police department here, all members serving and past, are in this together. We’re here for our community no matter who you are.”

  Eliza nodded and said as much into her own microphone. There was another murmur through the crowd. She clenched her jaw, trying desperately to maintain control of her own emotions.

  “Unless, of course,” said Groening, and a hush fell over the crowd again, and the rain battered down on the roof above their heads and echoed feedback through the microphones to the groans of the crowd, “unless of course you’re one of these people spreading hate and violence and fear.”

  “If you are one of these people protesting in the streets, if you are one of these people saying, ‘Black Lives Matter’ . . . they don’t,” he said, “not if you are one of these people, not if you are destroying our city, our urban environment, our great nation.”

  McNamara’s knuckles paled with the strain, and her nails dug into the quicks of other fingernails. Bottles were hurled from the people in the crowd and crashed and smashed around the stairs below their feet. Some made it to the podium. A glass bottle smashed against the badges on McNamara’s breast. She grabbed at the badges, popped the pins, and wrenched them off, throwing them down to the ground. “No,” she said into the microphone.

  “Hear me,” said Groening, “if you are one of these curs, I will put a bullet in your head myself, because you don’t deserve to call yourself American, you scum.”

  He held the Glock 17 up to the crowd and a chant rose, and McNamara lifted up on her tiptoes and then down and then up again. She rocked on the balls of her feet, agitated.

  McNamara’s fists clenched tight and she pulled her arm back sharply, readying a punch. A flare swirled past them, releasing a caustic smell. Eliza was temporarily blind.

  Groening spun, pointed the Glock into the crowd, and fired off eight rounds from his high-capacity magazine.

  There was a sharp scream and a shout, and a stampede as people surged away.

  They left in their wake human bodies crushed into the ground, and some still scrambling trying to get up in the wet slick of blood and summer rain.

  Eliza lunged forward, grabbed Groening’s Glock, smashed her fist hard into his wrist.

  Groening dropped the gun.

  She fell to the ground, rolled, picked the Glock up, spun, and fired it three times into Groening’s torso.

  As Groening fell unbearably slowly to the ground, McNamara found her feet and stood up over him.

  His breaths came ragged, and the rain pattered, constant, on the roof above them. Patter, patter.

  An agonized wail came up from the crowd and people slipped and slid and stumbled over each other to get out of the square. McNamara pressed the Glock to Groening’s cheek, and looked him in the eyes.

  “It looks like you made it all better,” she said. And pulled the trigger.

  The mechanism clicked.

  She kicked him as hard as she could. And he went down. His head snapping backwards. His eyes going out.

  She reloaded the magazine.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I jerked my head and launched my whole body up, across the bed and over the girl behind me. Her face was smushed into the mattress as I looked up at the ceiling and then down at the wall opposite Irving Mathers. She grunted but the mattress smothered it. The wall was the same off-white as the one in the other room I’d left, with a hole where a fist had gone through. Nothing doing. I pushed my body down into the bed so that my face was in the quilt cover this time. And I heaved. And heaved. I used all of my strength and rolled the girl over me and back down again, so I was once again facing Mathers and the Virgin Mary. This time she smothered her own grunt, but her hands wriggled and struggled to twist to a more natural pose as we settled.

  Maybe it was movement of our roll or the wriggling of her hands; either way, the cable ties around my wrists had loosened, stretched by the jerking action, and the pressure of two bodies pushing and pulling away from one another. I slid one of the girl’s hands out behind my back; it made room for my own to slide out. I kept them there for a moment and waited.

  Mathers picked up the knife from the crusty carpet. In the dim light of the crappy motel room, the steel reflected off the Perspex front of the Virgin Mary on the wall and sliced through the air towards me. I waited a fraction of a second longer, and then another fraction, counting in my head the whole time, and as the blade came within a whisker of my neck, I jerked my head back and my hands clapped out from behind me. I swung my hands up, one gripping the hand with the knife, the other wrenching back the other way, snapping Mathers’s wrist. The blade fell to the bed with a sheen of bright-red blood from the deep scratch on my neck. He was going to pay for that.

  Mathers squealed like a wounded pig and drove his knee down at me, and then his other hand came forward, thrashing, his fists open, his hand around my throat. I lurched to the side table, my hand fumbling, feeling for something to pick up, some kind of weapon . . . anything. My fingers found some old cigarettes in an ashtray. I grabbed a handful of the ash and flung it into Mathers’s face. He jerked backwards and coughed and spluttered, the puff of ash billowing out from his now gray features, the scent of old nicotine and tar filling the room in a plume of cancer-causing agents.

  I turned back to the side table, grabbed the ashtray, and pegged it at him. The filthy thing clean missed. It went flying across the room and frisbeed into the ceiling. Then the ashtray smashed down into the wall above where the TV had been. It lodged there like a broken tooth in a cracked and bleeding gum. Ash created motes in the dingy half-light.

  There was a knock on the door and voices outside. The girl screamed for help. For her life. The knock grew louder, and then there were thumps as a shoulder thudded against the door. But, Mathers was already back on me; his hands scratched, clawing at my eyes.

  I pulled back, away. Something clocked me over the head. I took a swipe at it.

  And then he thumped his good fist into my face. Mathers’s knee came down, crashed into my groin. I doubled up, only to feel his forehead crash into mine.

  I fell back, one hand to my groin, clutching the precious jewels, one to my face, blood streaming down my nose over the smear of ash and into my mouth. I rolled across the bed, my hand reaching the other nightstand. Fumbling. For something.

  There was nothing, and more nothing, then my fingers closed over a thick book: a hardcover. Nice.

  I scooped it up and launched myself off the bed and propelled myself against the wall. I pushed off with my right leg, launching myself back towards Mathers, who was coming at me with a fist poised behind his head, ready to smash it forward.

  I ducked under the roundh
ouse and came up with the hardcover novel and thumped it in sharp under his throat. His head jerked back, and the lights flashed out in his eyes through the ashy gray tar. He fell back towards the floor. I spun around again and smashed the book across the side of his face just to make sure. He thumped down onto the beige carpet, into the bloodstains, both fresh and ancient.

  I glanced at the cover: A James Patterson, Maxine Paetro Women’s Murder Club book, the fifth one. It seemed appropriate. I tossed it to the ground, dragged the cable from the back of the TV out and wrapped it three times around Mathers’s throat and yanked on the makeshift garotte. I found the packet of cable ties he’d used on us and wrapped some around his wrists and pulled them tight too. No chances. But I was out of cable ties. So I wrenched the curtain down and tied his ankles.

  The knocking stopped and hard feet had pattered away down the hallway . . . to get someone, I assumed. They’d be back before long. I crawled around to the other side of the bed where the girl lay panting, her face pressed into the wall as if she’d convinced herself if she couldn’t see it, it wasn’t happening. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She shook her head and the sobs grew louder. Then her eyes bugged wide, focused on something over my shoulder.

  I spun around just in time to see Mathers crashing forward, his whole body bearing down on me, jerking forward despite his bindings as if he was running in a sack race.

  I rolled to the side.

  Mathers fell heavy on the girl. I yanked him up and rolled him off her straight away, but his head had already done the damage. His thick caveman skull had smashed right into her forehead. She was out cold.

  I lifted the flimsy bed up with one hand and rolled Mathers under it with my feet. I let the frame down on him until he was pinned, and then I stepped over to the door and opened it. The manager of the motel and Grant Jackson ran towards me along the concrete walkway.

  “Call an ambulance and the police!” I yelled.

  “They’re busy,” said the motel owner, pulling to a halt. “Something big happening in town,” he puffed. “A rally. Shots fired. Officers down, people down. Several dead.”

  I stepped back into the room, lifted up the girl gently in my arms and carried her out. She was just about coming around again, bleary-eyed and moaning. Her pink and gray waitress uniform was grungy and stained, from blood, sweat and tears. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

  I handed the girl to Jackson and he shuffled under her weight, swaying and tipping, teetering back and forward. Eventually, he got her down the stairs and into the car and with a roar, off onto the road. I went back into the room, and grabbed the Women’s Murder club book, wiped my hand across the blood and the ash stains. I might read it later.

  I tucked the hardcover under one arm, got Mathers from the ground, lifted him up by the back of his collar. He was coming to as well, so I cut the ties around his legs and marched him out and down to his 18-wheeler, where I bundled him into the cab. The motel owner came up to my side of the truck and jumped up and down to get my attention and tell me, “You can’t just take a guest! You gotta wait for the cops.”

  I reached over to Mathers and took the yellowed lottery ticket from his pocket. My fingers found his wallet; there were a couple of fifties inside, I took them out, folded them and handed them to the motel guy.

  He stopped jumping up and down. I stepped on the gas.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Eliza McNamara was in the thick of the action. She took off her coat and wrapped it tight around a man’s shoulder. His bullet wound oozed blood, and the guy grimaced and swore his mouth off. He looked up at her, his eyes watery, his mouth struggling to form the words. “Thank you. Thank you,” he said. “Not just for this . . .” He touched the wound and then flinched. “. . . but for everything you’ve done for us, for our city.”

  She watched over him until a chubby young woman from the crowd bustled forward and identified herself as a med student. The woman dropped to a squat, unwrapped the coat McNamara had given him, and looked over the man’s wounds.

  Then, Eliza rose from her knees to direct the officers under her charge; she’d been gone a few days, maybe, but they still responded to her authority. She instructed the officers who’d been holding back the crowd to secure the area. “Anyone who’s not wounded, move them outside the barricades. Then interview them.”

  The rain had died down, thankfully, and she moved around, through the now tiny droplets, barely aware of the pain in her body. McNamara was operating on adrenaline, or fear, or a sense of satisfaction and closure. She’d shot Groening and stopped what was sure to become a further blot on America’s history of egregious civil rights violations. But still, things would go wrong and, still, there was plenty to do. Nonetheless, she was here, she was alive, and she could fix things now. That was her plan, anyway.

  But, she didn’t think too long about change. All she thought of was the next victim, the next person lying with boot marks all over them, a bleeding gunshot wound to the abdomen, the next person who needed to be interviewed by her officers, the next officer who needed to go home and be replaced by someone with fresh eyes and fresher legs.

  She never thought of her own freshness, her own struggle. So, when the EMTs arrived, she directed them to the people in the crowd who needed help most. She directed one group to Groening’s body, to cover it up, and prevent people from photographing the corpse and posting to social media. She handed her weapon over to the Medical Examiner, too, when he arrived.

  “I shot him, Groening, three times. Twice in the chest and once in the head.”

  She owned it.

  “It needed to happen. He was shooting civilians.”

  The ME nodded and set to work. Police photographers clicked and flashed. The press turned up in their droves and tried to do the same, but her officers held them back at a respectful distance. Still, she moved around and organized the troops.

  Then, McNamara felt a tap on her shoulder, and she turned and looked into compassionate eyes as Lieutenant Carter, who wrapped her arms around her.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” said Carter, holding Eliza at arm’s length and looking at her, and then bringing her back in for another hug.

  “Thank God. I heard so much. Saw the protests. The gathered crowds on the TV. I saw the speech you were forced to give, and your response and you shooting the bastard. I got down here just as fast as I could. Called some troops in on overtime.”

  Carter turned and pointed to where the police cars were piling up around the perimeter and where officer after officer swarmed out and into the secure area.

  “It’s time we got you out of here, Eliza,” said Carter, but McNamara shook her head.

  “I’m not finished, not yet. Let’s clean this up. Let’s do it right. Let’s make sure those who caused this situation won’t ever be in a position to cause a situation like this again.”

  “Groening’s dead.”

  “It’s not just Groening, it’s most of Savannah.”

  “Sure, but . . .”

  “Because, who knows how long our careers will last? Who knows how long I will be Chief of Police after this shooting? Groening was big in the White House. He was a politician at heart; there’ll be a huge cost for us to pay. The both of us. . . .”

  “But you’ve done it,” said Carter. “You’ve killed the bastard and shone a light on racism and the police response to it here in Georgia. That gives you a profile. People are watching. The city won’t be able to do anything to you.”

  Eliza shook her head sadly.

  “It’s never that simple, Carter. Never. There’s always a price to pay, and one never knows what that price is when they act. They only learn it after they’ve done what they’ve done, and they have to live with the consequences. Thing is, I can live with the consequences of killing Groening. If they strip me of my badge, if they take my identity, if they make my life hell, it doesn’t matter because I’ve demonstrated
what this country needs, which is tolerance, which is getting on, which is looking after every single person as best we can. And if we can’t . . .”

  She shook her head sadly, and then her words petered out. Carter leaned in close. Eliza whispered something, but they both shook their heads. A tear ran down McNamara’s cheek, and Carter embraced her again.

  Then they split up to direct some other officers. To do their damn jobs and get on with it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  When I walked Irving Mathers up the steps of the police station and into the front reception area, I was surprised by how quiet things were. A TV fuzzed in the corner of the room above empty waiting seats, and nobody stirred.

  I stepped up to the counter and a pimply-faced kid in a blue uniform looked at me.

  “Yeah? What do you want?”

  I checked his lapels for a rank, couldn’t find anything resembling a stripe.

  “Are there any officers here?” I asked.

  He shook his head, pointed at the TV. “They all went down there, left me in charge. Hell, I’m just the office assistant. I don’t know shit about how this place works.”

  “They leave you with any keys?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Ray Hammer, investigative journalist.” I showed him my press credentials.

  He looked me up and down. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

  “Got one of those faces,” I said, and he nodded knowingly.

  “Still, I’m not giving keys to no press reporter. They left me in charge here.”

  “It seems like a rather stupid thing to do,” I said. “As you said yourself, you don’t know shit about how this place works. Their fault not yours. Hand ‘em over, kid.”

  “Who’s he?” the kid asked, nodding at Irving Mathers, his face bloody, battered, the bruises starting to swell, his eyes puffing up, the fractured sockets beginning to show. They’d be black for weeks.