Night Shift

by B. K. Bass

  “It’s not that rough out here,” I said just before the crack of a firearm split the morning air and a bullet shattered the windshield.

  We both ducked, and jerked the wheel around, plowing between two flimsy, fiberglass homes and taking out parts of both with the broad automobile.

  “You were saying?” Frank groaned as the car lurched to a stop.

  “We’re here,” I answered as I drew my sidearm.

  Chapter Eight

  I poked my head up over the edge of the car. The distinct pops of a small-caliber weapon echoed around us, but I couldn’t see the muzzle flash. I ducked back down just as two slugs ricocheted off the trunk of the car. Frank climbed through the back seat and rolled onto the ground behind me. The car was wedged between the two trailers I more-or-less destroyed by driving through their living rooms. Luckily, the residents didn’t seem to be home.

  “This isn’t coming out of my paycheck,” Frank said.

  “Well, it’s not coming out of mine.”

  Two more bullets slammed into the car, these penetrating the side and rattling around in the trunk right behind our heads. If the shooter had a high-powered rifle, we would have been sitting ducks. But from the sound of it, we were probably only facing a small handgun.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked. This was where Frank took over. I was good at finding clues, sweet-talking answers out of witnesses, and thinking through leads; but when it came down to a fight, the larger and older man was in his element.

  “I suppress, you flank,” he said. Despite my trust in his background of military tactics, that seemed to always be his answer. I might have been placing my faith in the wrong person.

  Before I could complain, Frank rose with that miniature howitzer in his hands. It barked out a thunderous roar as he sent .50 caliber slugs soaring towards a yellow fiberglass trailer. They punctured the walls under the window near the door and the door itself. Most likely, they flew straight through, out the other side, and perforated a few more trailers on their way. If we were lucky, they would hit a metal cargo container before another human got in the way. At least my partner had identified the shooter’s position.

  That was my signal, so I ran across the narrow road and ducked behind another trailer. No return fire. I waited for Frank to reload, and he sent another six slugs flying. Trusting the shooter to at least be smart enough to duck when somebody was punching holes in his trailer with a hand-cannon, I sprinted as fast as I could along the edge of the road. I dropped to my knees and slid the last few feet on the sandy ground, glad I’d put the sturdy trousers on this morning. Gunshots rang out far too close to my head as the shooter resumed firing. My ears were ringing like the bells at St. Francis.

  Frank unloaded another clip of massive slugs into the trailer as I yanked the door open and barreled inside. “NAPD, drop your weapon and don’t fucking move!” I shouted. There was a thin man curled up on the floor, covered in fluff from the couch. One hand jerked out and a small handgun slid across the vinyl floor to rest beneath a beaten card table.

  “You good?” Frank shouted as he ran up to the trailer.

  “Clear,” I shouted back. I kept my weapon trained on the prone man, presumably Fixer Vic. Frank waded through the front door as he holstered his own sidearm. The bigger man flipped Vic over onto his belly and bound his hands with plastic zip-cuffs. Once secured, I holstered my weapon as well. Frank jerked the perp up by the shoulders and slammed him hard onto the perforated couch. Bits of foam and fluff puffed into the air as he landed.

  “Vic?” I asked.

  “Who’s askin’?” he spat.

  Frank picked up Vic’s handgun from under the table. He pulled back the slide to make sure a round was chambered, then held it up against Vic’s forehead. “Answer the man,” he said.

  The man’s eyes grew wide as he spat out, “Yeah, I’m Vic.”

  Frank lowered the gun, but kept it in hand as he loomed over Vic.

  “They call you ‘Fixer’ Vic?” I asked.

  “Some do, some don’t. What’s it to ya?” Vic asked.

  I pulled out my phone and stylus to jot down some notes. “You called in a cleaner to an apartment in Catawba Village. I need to know who told you they had a mess there.”

  “Hey, guys, you know I can’t do that. Doctor patient conf— confide—” he struggled with the word.

  “Confidentiality,” Frank said.

  I rose an eyebrow in surprise. “I’m impressed.”

  “I’ve been watching those holo-vids with the hospitals. There’s some nice-looking women on those,” Frank explained.

  Vic nodded with a broad grin.

  I sighed. I wasn’t sure what I hated more; the fact my partner was an idiot, or the fact this scum was agreeing with him. “I’m only asking one more time. Who gave the order?”

  “And I’m tellin’ you,” Vic said, “I ain’t tellin’ you.”

  Frank’s brows knitted in confusion. Even he understood the irony in the words, if only barely.

  I drew my sidearm, and before either of them realized what I was doing, I shot a slug into the couch between Vic’s legs. Had the shot been any closer, he’d be changing his name to Victoria.

  “What the fuck, man?”

  I raised the gun slightly. “I told you I was only asking once.”

  “Fine! Just, chill man.” Vic squirmed up the couch, trying to get his bits and pieces out of path of my next shot.

  “Harold,” Frank growled. He wasn’t averse to a little excessive violence, but shooting a suspect in custody was crossing the line.

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  Suddenly, Vic seemed to be in the mood to sing. “Petrov. Boris Petrov. He called and gave me the address. Said the place needed housekeeping service. There’s no crime in that, right? Just a cleaning service, bro.”

  I holstered my sidearm and paced around the dingy living room of the trailer. Boris Petrov was a prominent player in the Bratva, the Russian mob. Rumor was, he was a middle-management enforcer. In other words, he organized and led squads of bruisers and hit men. If the mob wanted somebody in New Angeles roughed up, silenced, or eliminated; chances were Boris was calling the shots.

  “What are we doing with this scumbag?” Frank asked.

  “Hey... guys... pals. You got what you needed, right? How about you cut me loose? Next time I get a job, I’ll drop you a line. Professional courtesy.” Vic pleaded.

  “Who’s going to give you any more jobs?” I asked. “We show up and you shoot on sight. Then we shoot your trailer up with more holes than New Angeles has boroughs. Then we just let you go? Everybody will know you squealed.”

  “I’ll just leave, then,” Vic offered. “I’ll head to Nevada and try my luck in the casinos.”

  “You tried to kill us,” Frank growled.

  Vic shook his head. “Naw, man. I was just tryin’ to scare you off.”

  “Be that as it may,” I said as I lit a cigarette. “You are no good to us out here, and you hurt our feelings shooting at us when we just wanted to chat. So as I see it, we have two options. Either we shoot you, or we lock you up.”

  “Let’s shoot him,” Frank grinned. I knew he was kidding, and he knew I was bluffing, but Vic didn’t seem to catch on. The skinny criminal was shaking in fear.

  “You might as well shoot me,” Vic cried out. “Once you squeeze Boris, he’ll know I talked. I’m as good as dead either way.”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess if you’re murdered in prison, I’ll still have a clear conscious.” The argument against his imprisonment confirmed Vic hadn’t been lying when he named Boris.

  Chapter Nine

  It didn’t take long for a patrol unit to come out and take Vic into custody. He wouldn’t actually be going to prison. The slammer was too overcrowded for a petty middleman like Vic to be worth taking up space. But locking him up in a cell at HQ for a while would protect him while we cleaned up this mess, and the fear of doing time would make him a reliable pigeon. It was a win-win
for everybody.

  I popped open the bullet-ridden trunk and pulled a water bottle out of the bag I packed. It was empty, and there was a hole in it big enough to stick my finger through. The trunk and bag were both soaked. The ricocheting bullets had hit every bottle I’d brought.

  With a sigh, I slammed the trunk closed. Frank was laughing over my shoulder. “As good a time as any to go out for a drink.”

  “It’s eleven in the morning,” I said.

  “Early bird gets the worm.”

  After getting shot at, I had to agree something to calm the nerves would do both of us good. I started up the car and backed it out from between the trailers with a screeching of fiberglass and metal. Before long, we were back on the highway and headed into the city through the mountains.

  “So,” I said, “we have Boris Petrov calling the shots on the murder, Kristoff Thomlinson is a likely client of the victim, and James Talbot is seemingly financing his nephew’s visits with her.”

  Frank rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Yeah, but how do Boris and Kristoff tie into each other? The drug habit?”

  “That’s probably related, but this seems too high profile for it to just be about a junkie. If I thought Kristoff owed the mob money, it might make sense for them to scare him by bumping off somebody he’s close to. But between mom and uncle James, I doubt money is a problem.”

  “Maybe he’s working for them?”

  I nodded. “That, is exactly what I’m thinking.”

  Sometimes Frank surprised me. It was possible Kristoff botched a job and the Bratva were putting pressure on him through killing Evie. Either that, or he told her too much. But that didn’t make much sense. In the simulation, Kristoff would think they were bonding in a one-on-one experience; but to Evie it was all a blur of a dozen different interactions at once. She didn’t even control anything in the simulation. The computer was calling the shots and using her brain to supply an emotional realism to the constructs.

  Everything still pointed to the mob trying to scare Kristoff for some reason or clean up a mess he made. Whether it was the drugs or some other business didn’t really matter until we knew more.

  The sun was high overhead as the car slid between the towering buildings of downtown New Angeles. Frank and I both looked exhausted. Normally, we would be sleeping right now. But time was not on our side, so sleep was a luxury we would have to forego. I pulled the car into a towering parking garage in the middle of a commercial district and found a cozy spot for the bullet-ridden behemoth near the entrance.

  “What now?” Frank asked.

  “That drink you offered to buy me, and some food,” I said as I got out of the car.

  “Hey, I never said anything about buying you a drink.”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me,” I said over my shoulder as I walked towards the street.

  Pablo’s was notoriously famous for cold tacos and warm beer. It was also cheap and never crowded, so it was a favorite stomping ground for city employees of all stripes. There were medics, cops, and firemen crowded around several tables with a sea of empty seats between each island. Smoke curled and rose from several of them, and the smell of burning tobacco mingled with the aromas of cumin, cilantro, and lime.

  Frank and I took seats at a small table in the corner. Before long, fried tortilla chips, plates of tacos, and assorted sauces filled the table, along with two beers illegally imported from Mexico. I wasn’t complaining, and that sort of federal crime was definitely above my pay grade. We were both quiet until we got to our second plate of tacos and third bottle of beer. The lunch crowd thinned out and the sparsely occupied dining room was soon vacant except for the two of us.

  “What do we do now?” Frank asked. I could hear the worry in his voice. We were getting wrapped up in something far more tangled than either of us had expected.

  I swallowed the last of a taco and lit a cigarette. The smoking roll of tobacco in one hand and the glistening bottle in the other; I contemplated our next move. “Going after Boris won’t get us anywhere. He’s too well protected. The same thing goes for Talbot.”

  “Kristoff?” Frank asked as he shoved food into his mouth and washed it down with the last of his beer.

  “If we can get near him. After our last encounter, I doubt he would welcome us with open arms.”

  “He won’t have a choice.”

  I coughed on the cigarette smoke, caught off guard by his words. “How’s that?”

  Frank smiled as he wiped salsa from his chin. “He’s locked up in Saint Mary’s. After he healed up, he started spouting off all kinds of crazy, so they locked him up in the psych ward. Saw it on the holo-vids.”

  I glared at him. “And when were you going to tell me this?”

  His face scrunched up in thought. “Now?”

  “Let’s go,” I said as I headed towards the door. Kristoff Tomlinson was a lot of things, but crazy wasn’t one of them. If he was acting like he had lost it, he was probably trying to stay in the hospital for protection. He likely hadn’t considered somebody as high profile as the mayor’s son making the news for being locked up in a psych ward. Whomever he was hiding from now knew where he was, and it was only a matter of time before they got to him. We had to get there first.

  THE TIRES SQUEALED as the car drifted around the corner. Despite the flashing lights and siren, the other vehicles on the road did little to move out of the way. I shouted as I drove, even though I knew if the siren wasn’t phasing them, my rage would do little to help.

  Frank held onto the dash as I swerved between a car and a delivery truck, cutting off the former. “You’re going to get us killed.”

  “Not today,” I said through clenched teeth. Spinning the wheel, I rounded another corner to the sound of squealing rubber. This road was more or less open, so I put the accelerator down on the floorboard. The electric motor whined in protest as it poured more power into the transmission. I avoided the cars on the road like a skier between the flags on a slalom course. The light at the intersection ahead of us flashed yellow, then turned to red.

  “Harold! Stop, damnit!” Frank yelled.

  Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the car flew through the intersection at full speed. I was focused on the road ahead, but I saw other vehicles in the corner of my eye. Suddenly, the entire world turned to a chaos of honking horns and crumpling metal. Steel grated against steel, and glass flew in every direction. The seatbelt dug into my shoulder. I had only a moment to cry out in pain before a blossom of white filled my vision and warm fabric ballooned out to smother me. I lurched to the side as the car spun. Frank was cursing unintelligibly. I saw motes of light dance before my eyes. I realized they were shards of glass as they tore through my face.

  As soon as it began, it ended. The world around me was stillness and silence. My ears rang. My eyes burned as blood dripped into them from cuts across my brow. I looked through the haze to Frank, who moved lethargically to unfasten the restraints. His mouth moved as if he were speaking. I couldn’t hear him through the whining in my ears.

  I unbuckled my restraint and tried to push the door open. It refused to budge. I crawled out of the vacant window and flopped to the ground. All around me was a scene of twisted metal. People in business suits stumbled about in the same foggy confusion I felt. Thousand-dollar satin shirts were bloodstained. I heard a woman screaming. Her voice cut through the unnatural silence as a solitary shriek. Then, the world exploded back into my head and I wished for nothing more than to focus on that single voice.

  Horns honked. People were yelling. A child was crying nearby. I looked down at where my hands pressed against the road and realized I was kneeling over a pile of glass. My palms were covered in spiderwebs of red cuts. Blood trickled down my wrists as I held my hands up before my eyes.

  I got to my feet and leaned against our crumpled car. Steam rose from under the hood. I saw Frank standing on the other side. He looked around in a daze. I called out to him, but I couldn’t hear my voice over the cac
ophony filling the intersection. Something made him turn.

  “We have to get to Saint Mary’s,” I yelled out.

  He stood there for a moment, then nodded and squeezed between two wrecks and into the open road. I climbed over another one as somebody yelled at me. I ignored them. Getting to Kristoff was more important. I half-heartedly flashed my badge behind me; it did nothing but inflame the crowd further.

  Leaving the chaotic intersection behind, Frank and I broke into a jog, side by side. The hospital was only a few blocks away. Traffic was already backed up beyond that point, so we had no worry of being run down as we jogged down the middle of the street. Horns honked angrily and drivers leaned out to ask what was happening. Frank drew his sidearm and the requests for information suddenly dwindled. I drew my pistol as we raced up to the doors of Saint Mary’s.

  The hospital was in a skyscraper that did not stand out from the surrounding ones. Like most downtown buildings, there were subterranean parking garages below it. The front doors stood back from the street just enough to allow a few cars to pull up for dropping off or picking up passengers.

  We ran through those doors and up to the polished steel counter, behind which sat a receiving nurse.

  “Kristoff Tomlinson, which room?” I asked.

  She gave me a puzzled look. “Sir, are you okay? Do you need to see a doctor?”

  “Huh?” Then I realized blood covered my face and shook my head. “No, I need to find Kristoff Tomlinson.”

  “I can’t give you his location unless you are a family member.”

  I slapped my hand on the counter. The pistol I was still holding rang against the metal surface. The muzzle was pointing directly at the snarky nurse’s head, and I was sure I now had her attention. I held my badge near the gun. “Kristoff Tomlinson. Room number. Now.”

  Her eyes grew wide. She hesitated a moment, then waved her hand in front of a holo-display set in the desk. Within moments she had our answer. “Room 763.”